Transformations
by SeverEstHolmes
Summary: Since the end of the War Hermione Granger has floated through months of aimless purposelessness, until someone from the past reappears in an altogether unexpected manner. A chance meeting proves that ultimately the biggest transformations come from within.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** **So this is a little bit of a brain child that I've had for a while, I've really taken my time in writing it as I've never written a femslash fic before...**

 **This is going to be a 5 part fic, and I hope if you chose to read it that you'll enjoy it! :)**

* * *

Hermione Granger couldn't understand anyone who didn't see the value of books. All her life, her love of literature and learning had encircled and enthralled her. She couldn't guess how many books that she owned, so many that she had filled the two bookcases in her own room and begun to spill over into a half empty bookcase in her parents study – and that had all been before she found out she was a witch, and discovered a whole new facet of books that she had previously known nothing about! She had always known there was something a little bit different about her, even when she was very young. There were odd instances where she would look back, as an adult, and understand that it had been the magic; but as a child it had always been a bit surreal. When she had been six or seven, she recounted to her parents that she was reading Roald Dahl's _Matilda_ and that – like the protagonist – she had tried to make books on her bookshelves move, and they had! Yet when she tried it in front of her parents, nothing happened. She had been confused at this, but accepted her parent's explanation – it must have been a dream.

But Hermione's life had turned out much more peculiarly than many of her beloved book characters. She had found out she was a witch, been accepted into Hogwarts and had become best friends with Ron and Harry. Their adventures, during their years at Hogwarts, had already become the subject of books. Yet since leaving Hogwarts after the Battle, the adventures in her life had dropped off… Harry wanted some people, which no one could blame him for, and Ron wanted to spend time with his family. Hermione understood where both of them were coming from, but she didn't want to be idle- she needed to be doing something but she couldn't quite figure out what that something was. Once the War had ended, and the fervour of excitement and celebration about Voldemort's demise had subsided, Hermione had gone to Australia to find her parents. After restoring their memory she had explained what she had done – and they had returned to Britain. None of that had eased her restlessness, her indecision about what to do next in her life. She knew, and actively tried, to campaign for rights for other magical creatures because that was important to her, but there was nowhere that would employ her to do that full time – that was her hobby. She didn't want to be an auror, despite the numerous times that Ron had tried to talk her into it. Ron and her had also seen the error of their ways – getting together at the peak of the War had been exciting, passionate and romantic, but staying together after so much had changed had become impossible. So they had amicably decided that this relationship wasn't for the here and now, but maybe in the future it would be right – so they'd leave the door open.

All of this had meant that only a few months after the end of the War Hermione didn't have a boyfriend, wasn't really sure what she wanted her future to be, and she was restless. So she had turned back to the one thing that had always been part of her life, regardless of magic or muggle – books. She managed to get an archiving job in the historical and academic department of wizarding research. It wasn't glamorous, or particularly busy, and the last wizard who had been in charge of archiving hadn't seemed to know in which order the alphabet was. At least it meant she was occupied – especially as this department wasn't frequented with visitors; and when there was, they were normally just as old as some of the first articles. A few of them had stopped and chatted with her, telling her what they were researching; they were all pleasant enough – but Hermione felt that just added to the "samey" monotonous routine she had fallen into until she could figure something better out.

Hermione pulled her scarf extra tightly around her cheeks, the bitter wind that was blowing right through her had almost made her want to retreat back into her cosy little flat, but she didn't have far to walk and then she would be in the relative warmth of the archive. The mornings were marginally lighter now, but she still looked forward to when spring would fight its way through winter.

When she arrived at her work she discovered – to her surprise – that every coat hook was taken up by a jacket, resolving that she would have to leave her coat in the little staff room (which comprised of a sink, chair and not much else!). She stopped on her way in to find out what was happening from Gladioli, the receptionist.

"It's some sort of research trip for a bunch of students, or prospective students – something like that," She told Hermione. "It's been arranged for a few weeks – I had even put it in the diary! But I must have forgotten about it because they were all standing outside when I arrived this morning!" She admitted slightly guilty. "But it's good! If they want to come and look around maybe others will as well, we might liven this place up yet!"

"Yeah, that's good." Hermione highly doubted that they would "liven" the place up like Gladioli wished; the archive library was an absolutely _amazing_ resource – it contained articles, journals and notes on topics she hadn't even heard of – but it was difficult to search through. It took patience, which was something that not many people possessed. If she worked here long enough to finish the ordering of all the journals and documents, she would maybe then set up some kind of quick referencing grid so people could find the sort of thing they were looking for.

Gladioli had been right about people livening the archive up a little bit – the movement, the warmth, even the presence of other alive people in the library made a difference.

Hermione threw her jacket onto the chair in the staff area, and dug through a pile of bookmarked articles that she had not finished filing away from yesterday. She bundled them in her arms and made her way over to the shelves she had been working at. Hermione could see several of the students wandering about in among the shelves. For a few moments she wondered what they were looking for; she would probably be able to point them in the right direction if they asked her – but maybe they were here to learn how to research. There was a low murmur caused by the students that reminded Hermione of the library at Hogwarts. Was she now the replacement of the vulture-like Madam Pince, who had stalked in between the shelves waiting to pounce on unsuspecting students if they were misbehaving. That almost made Hermione laugh to think of herself as Madam Pince – but these students were all well behaved, if this was for a grade or a pre-requisite for a course, they weren't about to screw that up just to have a bit of fun.

Normally Hermione found it very easy to become immersed in her work – usually she could quickly become enthralled in ensuring that all the documents she was in charge of were being filed and notated correctly. Today she kept getting distracted by this party of students; most of them seemed to have found what they were looking for and taken seats in the covered desks to look through what they had retrieved. There was one boy who looked as though he had emptied the entire contents of a shelf and piled it up on the desk next to him – Hermione only hoped that he had kept them in some semblance of order. There were a few still wandering about in and out of the shelves; the closest to Hermione, a girl with thick dark hair that fell in ringlets all down her back, kept shooting glances over at Hermione. After about five minutes of the girl hovering in the same place in the same place, she turned to Hermione.

"Excuse me," She began very quietly. "Do you work here?"

"Yes," Hermione laid down the pamphlet she had been filing, noticing that the girl's eyes were very much like Hagrid's – beetle black and sparkling. "Can I help at all?"

"I'm trying to find anything you might have about the difference between animal-based potion ingredients and plant-based," She replied, "Do you know if there's anything like that?"

"I'm not entirely sure there'll be an extensive amount of research." Hermione warned, walking along the row that they were standing in. "But what there is, will be along here." Hermione led her towards the back of the archive, which was fairly dark until the light globes above them sensed their presence. "This is where the information you're looking for is most likely to be." Hermione had come to a halt at the section about potions and alchemy.

"Thank you." The girl said, beginning to browse up and down the shelf.

"You're welcome; if you need any more help just give me a shout." Hermione offered, leaving her at the back of the archive. Maybe they weren't all studying the same subject – with them being so spread out throughout the archive. Whilst walking back down to the area that she had been working in, her eye was caught by a pile of journals lying on the floor – clearly someone had pulled them out, thinking they might have been of some use, but changed their mind and decided not to return them to their original place. Feeling a flare of annoyance at the carelessness of some individuals, she marched along the row to see if she could identify who had done that. The aisle at the end of the rows was empty however. She wandered up and down, looking in the rows either side of the one she had emerged from – in reality she wouldn't know what to say if she did find anyone maliciously pulling out things from the shelves. She would probably just follow them, picking up anything they dropped and trying to minimise any damage. But there was no one in close enough proximity for Hermione to think it was them. The closest people to her were the dark haired girl whom she had just led to the back of the archive, and a tall blonde girl who seemed deeply engrossed in a journal about six rows away from the pile of books. Hermione was about to return and clean up the mess that the infuriating individual had left, when something about the tall blonde girl caught Hermione's eye. Half concealed behind the edge of the row end, Hermione watched the girl as she stood – almost with her back towards Hermione. The girl was very tall, taller than Hermione by about a head, with white blond hair pulled into two small ponytails at the nape of her neck. She was wearing a pair of hip rider faded denim jeans and a checked shirt which looked rather over large for her thin frame. Hermione realised that she was gripping the edge of the shelf rather tightly, and staring at the back of this girl transfixed, and she didn't know why.

Then the girl turned, and her features were thrown into sharp relief by the light, and Hermione couldn't stop herself from gasping. There was no way that Hermione could fail to recognise the pale, pointed face with the long straight nose – and there was no possibility of not recognising the mercury silver eyes that were widening in horror as they looked straight at Hermione. The two of them stared at each other, Hermione could feel her face going red at having been caught staring. But with those recognisable features – ones she had spent six years at school trying to avoid – broad shoulders and a thin frame, it was unmistakably:

"Draco?" Hermione asked, confusion wracking through her; the person standing in the row flinched as though Hermione had thrown a book at them.

"Don't call me that." It came out as a whisper, but she had screwed up her eyes closed and shook her head as Hermione watched.

"I'm sorry." Hermione muttered, keeping her voice low so as to not disturb anyone else; it was clear that she had caused some distress. "But you are-" She had been about to say 'a Malfoy' when she was cut over.

"No I'm not!" The shrill shriek rent the quiet air of the archive. There was a sudden murmuring as all of the other people questioned one another about what had just happened. Hermione was slightly dumbfounded by the ferocity of her response. "Don't stick your nose in where it isn't wanted Granger!" Hermione wanted to back away, she wanted to retreat into the tiny staffroom and hide there for the rest of the day; but she could feel the angry glare being thrown her way.

"I – I…" She stammered, slightly unsure of what she should do or say now.

"You just keep your mouth shut, alright?" It was meant to be a threat, but her voice was trembling through fear. Hermione nodded dumbly, knowing that there was no other mode of action that could be taken. Then very suddenly, the girl dropped the book she had been reading – spun round and almost ran out of the row; after a few seconds Hermione was aware of the 'ting' of the bell on the door which rang when someone entered or exited the archive. Hermione dug her fingernails into her palm to see if she could feel the pressure – she was half convinced that this must be some sort of a bizarre dream she was having, but she could feel the jagged edges of her nails impressing into the soft skin of her palms.

Hermione stood there blankly for a while before coming to the realisation that she actually should be working. She collected the dropped book from the floor and slotted it back into the empty space on the shelf. She knew that she should go and sort out the mess of journals and articles that whoever had dumped on the floor, but she found herself walking back to the tiny excuse for a staffroom and switching the kettle on. She chewed on her fingernails as she heard the water in the kettle boil. She felt as though she was just waking up from a daze, her brain reacting slowly and stupidly. That _had_ been Malfoy though – she really hadn't made that detail up. Unless Draco had an identical relation that had to be him. But if it was, what was he doing dressed entirely as a girl? The repulsion at the use of his own name had been obvious – but then perhaps Hermione, too, would have been repulsed if her name was forever synonymous with Death Eater. Hermione's head was beginning to ache as she thought about it.

She scooped her teabag out of her cup, aware that she would spend the rest of her day trying to figure out exactly what had just happened…

* * *

 **A/N: I'd love to hear what you think/feel about this chapter! :)**


	2. Chapter 2

It had been a mistake, Libelle knew that now, but she had spent the whole of last summer convincing herself that she couldn't go back to Hogwarts so she had to find somewhere else. She considered going abroad – to one of the European wizarding schools where no one would know who she was. Sure, the Malfoy name would always carry a stain – but perhaps her change of identity would be enough to confuse people. The issue with the European schools, however, was language. She didn't speak any other than English, and they weren't likely to teach entirely in English to accommodate one student. The American and Australian schools were out because they used a different schooling system, so she was kind of stuck. Until she found out about MAE college. Situated in the heart of London, the Merlin and Erasmus college had been set up for wizards and witches who needed to get specific qualifications to get in to training programmes. It had been a godsend when Libelle contacted them and discovered they ran all of the NEWTs that she would need to be accepted into healer training. Her surname had caused a bit of a stir when she had enrolled and, for the first time, she had to go in to explain. She had anticipated it, she knew that she was likely to be questioned intensely over the next couple of years, but that hadn't prevented her heart pounding in her chest as she arrived, or the nervous tugging at her sleeves and skirt that she was sure people would judge her for wearing. But the Professor and the admissions officer hardly batted an eyelid as she explained, through lips that felt like they were made of rubber, that she had been born male and raised as Draco – but that she had never felt right, she hadn't ever felt as though she fit into the skin she was born in. It had taken so long – especially with what was going on in the wizarding world and how her family had been embroiled in it – before she knew what the problem was, before she could express it into intelligible words. She may have been born into a male body, but she was and had always been a girl.

When the War had ended that had been her chance, to shed the old identity as the rest of her family were trying to shed the Death Eater persona. Lucius hadn't been imprisoned – yet – but he spent days and days being interrogated and then aiding the ministry to reclaim treasures, weapons, and information about lives lost; he hadn't gotten away with his actions, even though it had been noted that he and Narcissa had not fought to the bitter end. They had admitted defeat long before it had all been over.

Narcissa had known something of Draco's woes through the years, she knew he had been unhappy. Libelle clearly remembered the night when, through tear filled eyes and trembling lips, Draco had tried to explain – knowing it sounded mad, knowing it wasn't eloquent or easily understandable – that he wasn't the son she wanted, and he couldn't keep the pretence up any longer. It hurt too much. Narcissa had listened, really listened intently, to everything that her son was trying to explain. Then held her new daughter as she sobbed; it didn't matter to Narcissa whether Draco was a male or a female, all she cared about was that her child was safe and happy. In the past few years neither of those securities had been guaranteed, but now she would do whatever it took.

That night had been both one of the best, and close to one of the worst, nights of Libelle's life – but when it was over, she knew she had an ally in her mother. And when she explained that she knew what name she wanted to be called – 'Libelle' – Narcissa had exclaimed that at least it wasn't a star; it was time that tradition was broken, and when better to do it!

Lucius was going to be a completely different kettle of fish, he had always wanted a son – someone to carry on the Malfoy family name. Even when Draco had been trying his best to do everything his father wanted, and more, there had always been that niggling feeling like he wasn't good enough; he knew he could never be what his father wanted. Narcissa had told Libelle to leave the situation up to her, that Lucius would just take some time to get used to the concept. But until he was used to it, Libelle had decided to rent a flat, under the pretext that it was for college; it meant that she didn't have to deal with the tension, with the confused and disapproving looks. In all honesty, she was happier now than she had ever been.

Even starting at the new college, daunting though the thought of it had been, hadn't turned out too badly. Most of the witches and witches at MAE were either older, retraining to do something they decided they wanted as a new career; there were some international students as well; and the rest were young people from the UK – mostly home schooled. Libelle ended up in a small peer group of guys and girls who would have been in her year at Hogwarts, had they not all been home schooled. These were nice people who didn't know Draco and – as far as Libelle was concerned – didn't need to. It wasn't as though she had to start every conversation with: "Hi, I'm Libelle, and I was born a boy." She wasn't even sure that most people would understand what the word transgender meant.

By Christmas time her father had, finally, accepted the fact that he did not have a son but a daughter. There was still a shade of awkwardness between them, but not enough for it to cause tension or arguments. The same time the previous year the Dark Lord and his Death Eaters had played resident in their home – and if the Malfoys could get through that surely they could make through a little bit of awkwardness… Time was what Libelle reckoned her father needed: more time to process, and she would afford him that time – and space – because she wanted to make him happy.

She was beginning to feel more confident in herself, more at ease like no one could dent her rising self esteem, when it happened. That "it" just so happened to be Hermione Granger, one of the last people on earth Libelle wanted to come into contact with.

Two of the college classes had been due to visit this research archive, and Libelle had been really looking forward to it. It was a trip out from sitting in class, and she was sure it would be helpful for those essays she still had to write. The archive was a huge room that looked as though it never ended, it stretched into a dark chasm with rows of books that kept going. The archive had that musty "old paper" smell that so many people loved, there was a static-ness about the air, a crispness as most of the articles, journals and books lay mainly untouched on the shelves. There was an unbounded amount of knowledge stored away within this place. So she'd taken her time browsing, looking into rows that took her fancy, despite knowing she wouldn't need any of the information stored in them.

If you've ever experienced the sensation that someone or something is watching you, that is almost impossible to shake – that was the sensation that Libelle felt whilst in the archive. She tried to shake it off, reminder herself that being paranoid about these sort of things would do her absolutely no good at all. But she couldn't rid of the feeling, like the hairs on the back of her neck were standing on end, and she realised that was because someone _was_ watching her. From behind the edge of the row there was a face staring at her, with bushy hair that she could have recognised from miles away. Libelle's heart plummeted into somewhere in the region of her abdomen, her throat squeezed shut and she found it difficult to keep breathing at a normal rate. Of anyone in the world to meet her like this – so early on into her transition, while her old identity was remembered, Hermione Granger would be one of her last choices. She didn't know what to do – she couldn't pretend that she hadn't seen Hermione, not now the red flush of embarrassment spread over Hermione's cheeks. Never before had Libelle felt so tiny, she wished she could shrink and disappear into nothingness, but that would not help the situation. So she stood her ground, staring at Hermione with her heart rate increasing with every passing second.

"Draco?" The name was like a shard of ice being impaled into Libelle's heart, it caused a physical pain.

"Don't call me that." She had wanted that statement to sound strong, an order more than a request; but it came out as a weak whisper, like her throat had closed up from the panic of the situation. She closed her eyes, hoping that the ground would open up and swallow her.

"I'm sorry," Hermione's face had turned a deeper shade of scarlet, she had paused before saying: "But you are-" Libelle didn't even need to hear the end of the sentence, an ice cold rage had erupted inside her and she couldn't contain her fury.

"No I'm not!" Damn all the people that would hear her shout; she didn't need reminding that she used to be Draco – that thought weighed heavily enough on her all day, every day. Hermione had just stood there, looking timid; but Libelle wasn't having it, she wasn't going to permit Hermione to run around and tell tales about her. There were enough rumours floating about as it was without Hermione adding to them. "Don't stick your nose in where it isn't wanted Granger." She wanted it to be a threat, but her ability to be threatening had evaporated – all she was trying to do now was stop the quaver in her voice from being audible.

"I – I…" Hermione had stammered, looking uncertain.

"You keep your mouth shut, alright?" The break in her voice had ruined the intention; she had allowed the book she had been so interested in before drop to the ground, and turned to leave. Her heart still pounding in her chest as she attempted to look as calm and composed as possible until she got outside; it was a challenge not to run. She grabbed her coat from the peg it had been on, only faintly hearing the receptionist asking:

"Are you alright love?" She heard her own voice replying, mumbling something about not feeling well; she couldn't respond further, even though the receptionist was telling her to come back any time she wanted. She did feel physically sick now, she needed to be home in her flat – safe. Where she knew her momentary flare of anger would turn to upset, and she could curl up and feel protected from the outside world which always seemed determined to wound her. She wandered along the street, looking for somewhere she could apparate from, clutching her coat around her. In her haste to get away she hadn't buttoned up her coat correctly and the cold was beginning to seep in through the material. There was a small alleyway in between what looked like two office blocks, that would have to do. Maybe she was about to wake up and find that this was a dream, that she hadn't been to the archive yet and there was no concern about Hermione Granger.

It hadn't been a dream however, and no matter how much she wanted to pretend it hadn't happened Libelle couldn't get the image of Hermione Granger's face out of her head as she curled up in her bed – declaring to herself that the rest of her day should be a 'duvet and self-pity' day. She didn't want to think about that morning.

But, as it so often is, the one memory that she wanted to forget about wouldn't stop plaguing her thoughts. All day she felt like someone had suspended a weight inside her ribcage so it would progressively get heavier and harder to ignore – nothing she could do would take her mind off of it. She buried her head under her duvet, hoping that by the following morning the guilty feeling in her stomach would have vanished.

It didn't though – as she woke up to the dim light of the dawn coming through her window, the first thing that settled in her mind was an image of Hermione's face. She couldn't even identify why she felt so guilty, she tried to force the thought out of her mind as she began to get ready for college. If any of the people in her class asked where she had gone yesterday, she would just tell them that she hadn't felt well – hopefully no one would have linked her to the person that had screamed whilst in the archive.

"Libelle? Earth to 'Belle." Libelle's friend, Ceri, waved a hand in front of her face; Ceri had been sat next to her during all of the morning's classes, and she could hardly fail to notice the glazed over expression on her friends' face.

"What?" Libelle blinked, it seemed like she was only just seeing her surroundings for the first time.

"Are you okay?" Ceri asked, "You've been really out of it all morning."

"Mmm…?" Libelle still felt like she was forcing herself to pay attention, Ceri's words took a few seconds to register. "Oh sorry, my head isn't really with me today." Libelle ran her hand across her face, trying to inject a bit of wakefulness to her brain.

"Well you better hope that yours catches up because we've got potions after lunch, and I don't want you cutting off your fingers." Ceri laughed, Libelle forced a smile onto her face too, but she was still thinking about the previous day.

The grey rain clouds had been hanging heavy and low in the sky for most of the afternoon, but they only chose to open and release their contents right at the moment that Libelle's classes ended for the day. She might as well have gone home at lunchtime because her brain still hadn't engaged. Twice during potions Ceri had had to hiss at Libelle to pay attention to stop her from doing anything stupid.

"Hey 'Belle, we're going for a drink." Ceri indicated to herself, and Ceilyne and Jordan. "Do you wanna come?" Libelle seriously considered this, a couple of glasses of fire whisky, or any kind of alcohol, might be just what she would need to forget yesterday, but she found herself shaking her head at the offer.

"No thanks," She heard her voice reply before she was really aware of having made a conscious decision. "I think I'm going to head home and get some rest."

"Alright," Ceri agreed, "At least if you're awake tomorrow I won't have to stop you from accidentally adding our own digits to a potion." There was a chorus of 'byes' and 'see you laters' from them as they departed as a group. Even if Libelle went straight home, got directly into bed and closed her eyes, she knew she wouldn't get to sleep – tired as she was – she would lie awake, tossing and turning to no avail, and in the end she'd only feel worse. She had to do something to appease the guilty feeling bubbling away inside of her, and there was only one way that she could guarantee it.

Libelle skulked in the alleyway she had just apparated into for the next few minutes, making sure that no one had seen her appearing. The high walls of the businesses on either side of the alleyway meant that it was unlikely anyone would ever know she had been there in the first place. She didn't stay in the alleyway for too long, she didn't know who or what had been down there before her. She had absolutely no idea what she was going to say – unsure about explaining that she felt somehow obliged to apologise. She could just vanish – never have to see Hermione Granger again ever, but that wouldn't ease how she felt.

There was no coats lining the hooks on the walls of the entrance today, clearly there wasn't anyone visiting the archive today. The receptionist behind her desk was turning the pages of ' _Witch Weekly'_ with her perfectly manicured fingers; Libelle couldn't quite understand people who managed to wear nail polish without it chipping in the first few seconds – perhaps there was some spell behind it.

"Hello, can I help you at all?" The receptionist asked, when she finally raised her gaze from her magazine and spotted Libelle hovering in the entrance. There was nothing for it, Libelle was going to have to bite the bullet and do it.

"I – um, I was here yesterday." Libelle could already feel her cheeks burning from embarrassment. "And-"

"You were the one who had to go home cause you weren't feeling well," She commented, looking up at Libelle with a peculiar expression on her face.

"I, yes, that was me." Libelle responded rather self-consciously, was she just acting paranoid or was the receptionist looking at her peculiarly? Had Hermione already told people?

"Are you feeling better?" She asked, Libelle had the sudden urge to say 'no' but she nodded. "Do you want to go in and have a look around? We're not open for much longer tonight, but it might give you an idea if there's anything you want to come back and see."

"Yeah, that would be really great." Libelle answered.

"On you go through." She indicated to the door on the left side of her desk.

"Can I ask a quick question?" Libelle interjected before the receptionist had gone back to reading her magazine. "Is Hermione Granger working today?" The receptionist's face broke out into a huge grin.

"Aw, do you know Hermione?" She asked, sounding much more friendly all of a sudden.

"Yeah, I – we were in the same year at school." Libelle agreed, "I thought I recognised her yesterday, but I didn't really have the chance to speak to her."

"Well she's in today, she'll be in the archive somewhere – cataloguing probably." She replied, "Just go on through."

"Thanks," Libelle pulled her bag further up on her shoulders and passed through the door, hearing the small bell chime as she entered the archive. The crispness of the air was still present, but the difference from the day before was the silence. The absence of people made the sound very deadened, every movement seemed to be amplified in the quiet – how could someone work in such silence all day? Libelle was convinced that, though the quiet, everyone would be able to hear the pounding of her heart through her ribcage; it was so loud in her ears that it seemed almost impossible for it not to be heard. Now she was beginning to feel regret for coming, her stomach clenched into knots inside her and her legs trembling with every further step. She hid in one of the first rows, pretending to be greatly interested in one of the journals even though there was no one around to see her. What was she going to say? She could feel herself shuffling nervously from foot to foot, waiting for the pounding of her heart to subside a bit before she did anything, but she didn't have the chance to run any kind of apology through her head because all of a sudden, carrying a stack of papers Hermione Granger came round the corner of the row. She stopped dead, the papers in her arms wobbling precariously as though they might all cascade to the floor, and she took a step back to steady herself.

"What are you doing here?" Hermione blurted out, looking slightly intimidated – that was an expression that cut into Libelle. She had wanted to leave behind the persona of intimidation, because it didn't inspire confidence and it always created isolation; but apparently her outburst yesterday and now just her presence was intimidating to Hermione. That feeling loosened one of the knots of apprehension in Libelle's stomach, that wasn't how she wanted to be known, it wasn't the aura she wasn't the aura she wanted to give off. Reverence, intimidation and fear weren't the way to make friends, they only attracted people who wanted the protection that those gave. Draco had spent six years flanked by Crabbe and Goyle, and that had mainly been down to his ability to guide them to appear intimidating. All of the people Draco would have called friends while at Hogwarts, were invariably seeking status, seeking protection, or seeking guidance – and it hadn't taken place. But what it had meant was that Draco – his secret about his identity still upheld – didn't have any friends he could trust. The problem with replacing friendship with an obligatory fear meant that he had only ever had himself to depend on, because how did he know if there was any real loyalty at all? Which was why that was one thing Libelle was going to take advantage of – she had the chance to start afresh, to be renewed. She wanted to make friends who liked her for who she was – not for any ulterior motive, and that meant letting go of big parts of how she had operated before. She had vowed that it was gone, but that part of her had crept in yesterday in a moment of panic – and now Hermione was standing there, looking as intimidated as if Libelle had shouted at her right at that moment.

"I…" Libelle's mouth and throat suddenly felt like sandpaper, dry and scratchy as she tried to get words out. "I came to apologise." She finally managed to string together a coherent, audible sentence.

"To apologise?" Hermione repeated, she was still holding the stack of papers but she sounded less terrified now. Libelle returned the journal she had been reading (or pretending to) onto its space on the shelf.

"For yesterday." Libelle began, looking down as she shuffled her feet. "I was shocked because I didn't expect to see anyone I knew, and then I panicked." Hermione had placed the stack of articles and papers on a desk near the end of the row, but she was still standing rather warily with her arms folded across her chest. "I didn't expect to see you, then I did and my brain went into panicked overdrive and I acted inappropriately. I shouldn't have shouted at you, or threatened you, so I'm sorry." It was jumbled, and slightly garbled as Libelle struggled to get the words and intentions in the right order. It felt like forever as Hermione gawped at Libelle, then she perhaps realised what she was doing, cheeks going slightly pink, replied:

"It's alright." Hermione's voice was fainter that usual – like she had become unaccustomed to using it. Perhaps all the time working in this silent environment had depleted her voice. "I guess I wasn't particularly polite either, sorry." Both girls stood slightly awkwardly, not quite sure what to do or say next; at least the horrid pounding of Libelle's heart had subsided now, and her stomach was slowly unclenching as she felt less terrified. "I was going to ask – you are a Malfoy, right?" Her voice wavered with uncertainty as she asked, possibly she expected another outburst.

"Yeah, I am." Libelle answered, and then decided that she might as well do it properly, she stuck her hand out to shake Hermione's. "I'm Libelle." Hermione shook her hand, it's tiny form being swamped by Libelle's huge palm and long fingers; that would be something that Libelle would never be able to reclaim – that delicacy. "I'm sorry that I startled you, can we begin afresh?"

"Yes, of course." Hermione agreed. "I don't think I would be seeing you back here, to be honest." She grinned nervously.

"I didn't really have any intentions of coming back either," Libelle replied honestly. "But what I did yesterday was bothering me, so I thought I should come and clear my conscience."

"Right, well, thank you." Hermione responded, she looked around nervously, perhaps it was just the memories of association that made her look that uncomfortable. "I should really get back to work," She muttered, moving back to where she had laid the piles of paper. "Feel free to take a proper look around." Hermione offered, lifting her bundle back into her arms.

"That's kind." Libelle replied, "But I think I'm going to just go now." She pulled her coat more tightly around her, this time she actually was going home – not like how she had said she was to her friends. Maybe she might come back one day when she had enough time to have a proper look around.

"Did you find Hermione?" The receptionist called out after Libelle as she rushed across the entrance to the archive.

"Oh yes I did," Libelle spun around to face the receptionist, grinning as she wrapped her coat closer around her. "I think I'm going to come back on a day when I've got more time." She explained rather apologetically, all the while taking small steps back towards the door.

"We'll be seeing you again some time then!" The receptionist responded cheerily.

"Yeah," Libelle said, although she was thinking 'probably not' in her head. "Bye for now." She was at the door, trying to not look too desperate to leave.

The rain had weakened from a steady downpour to a light drizzle as Libelle stepped out of the archive – at least now she had assuaged the guilty feeling inside her. It felt much nicer being a person who offered apology and received forgiveness than one who held a grudge and always sought revenge – it was very freeing. She was walking back to that little alleyway, intending to apparate back to her flat and spend the rest of her evening relaxing when she heard her name being called out behind her.

"Libelle, Libelle!" Hermione was running after her on the steps down from the archive; she stopped – feeling slightly apprehensive about why she was being followed. Hermione caught up with where Libelle was standing. "Sorry." She skidded to a halt so she was right in front of Libelle. "I just thought – let's have a completely fresh start."

"Yes." Libelle agreed, not really sure where Hermione was going with this.

"Maybe we could ignore the past completely, and – I… um," She faltered, looking unsure at herself. "Would you like to go for a coffee or something sometime?" Libelle stared blankly at Hermione, half thinking she had imagined that question, but half knowing she hadn't.

"I… I…" Libelle stammered, that had been the last question she had been expecting.

"I don't want to force you into anything." Hermione said suddenly, "I just thought that I'd offer – completely new start and all."

"No, it's just – it's not what I was expecting you to say…" Libelle responded, it wasn't that she was wary; it was just she hadn't considered that eventuality. She realised that she had been standing for nearly a minute without saying anything, while Hermione looked uncomfortable waiting for a response. "Yeah, I'd really like that." Libelle decided firmly, one coffee wouldn't hurt.

"Great, how about tomorrow?" Hermione suggested, a nervous smile on her face, Libelle nodded. "I finish work at five and there's a couple of nice little cafes around here, shall we go to one of them?"

"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea." Libelle was astonished that her voice was sounding so calm. "I'll come here at about five tomorrow."

"That's great." Hermione was turning to go back into the archive. "I'll see you tomorrow." She disappeared back into the archive building, leaving Libelle standing in the middle of the pavement, simultaneously disbelieving and unsure, but slightly excited, about what had just happened.

* * *

 **A/N: I'd love to know what you think about this chapter :)**


	3. Chapter 3

Hermione was at a loss to explain the workings of her mind the past couple of days. Things hadn't been this eventful in her life since the end of the War – but the past few days had been a whirlwind of confusion and peculiarity. On Monday evening she had felt rather bewildered after meeting, who she thought was, Draco Malfoy at her work. It had _looked_ like Draco, even sounded rather like Draco if a little softer spoken, but they clearly were a woman. Her initial thought had been that it must have been a relative – perhaps a cousin from Draco's father's side – who shared the same facial features and bone structure. That thought had been disproved by the fact the girl had known Hermione's name – and it wasn't like there could have been another Malfoy of which they weren't aware of. It had to be Draco – appearing now as a girl. Hermione wondered how she hadn't heard about this – the press had been following the decline and punishment of those who had been Death Eaters with a fine toothed comb. There wasn't much that went on that the world didn't end up reading about. That was how Hermione knew that the Malfoys had actually been mostly pardoned because of a testimony given by Harry. That particular story had ignited the press, and the public, interest for nearly a month – with daily updates as to how they should be punished, debates about why such a long-standing member of the Death Eater order should be effectively getting away with his crimes while other newer members were imprisoned or stripped of belongings and status. Then as it came to light that it was Lucius Malfoy who was assisting in the confiscation, removal and returning of items that had either been stolen from their rightful owners or that were so dangerous they couldn't be allowed to remain in the public domain. Lucius was providing information that was bringing others to justice. The press had loved that too – now he wasn't just an ex-Death Eater, he was a traitorous ex-Death Eater. As Hermione thought about it though she realised that the articles about the Malfoys were always about Lucius – sometimes Narcissa got a little mention, but she couldn't recall seeing anything about Draco, _ever._ It was like he had suddenly ceased to exist. Perhaps that was because _he_ had ceased to exist, for all intents and purposes the person who Hermione had seen in her work had been Draco, but hadn't at the same time. It was confusing and made Hermione's head ache to think about it.

At first Hermione considered sending a message to Harry, perhaps even Ron as well, to see if they had heard anything or knew anything about what was going on with Draco Malfoy. But then she remembered the threat to keep her nose out and her mouth shut, and that's what she was going to do. After all, she wanted a quiet life – didn't she?

But it seemed that a quiet life was completely off the cards for Hermione. She had been immersed in getting a particularly overcrowded shelf rearranged into piles of specific sections so that they could be filed away, she as carrying a pile of them down to the shelves at the front of the archive when she almost ran into the girl from the previous day. It had certainly given her a fright, stopping dead in her tracks. This person looked like Draco, although now Hermione could see her closed she realised that her features looked softer, she spoke more softly – there was none of that sneer that had so singularly epitomised Draco throughout his school career. This was a genuine apology, Hermione could see that in her eyes. It had legitimately taken her by surprise and she hadn't known how to react other than to agree and nod politely.

It wasn't until Hermione was replacing some of the articles in her arms back onto the shelf that a thought struck her. This was an opportunity that might never present itself again – it was the chance to wipe absolutely everything clean. Her entire history with Malfoy, every nasty word, every spiteful action, every vindictive thought perpetrated by them both over the years – could be entirely evaporated. Fleetingly she allowed herself to be honest – only she could admit to herself how lonely she had been of late, how everyone was doing their own thing – be that with work, friends, or their private lives. It was like they had all managed to compartmentalize their lives, easily slotting different people into their own sections. This was Hermione's chance to do something on her own for herself without needing to consider or concern anyone else. So before she could stop to talk herself out of it, Hermione was chasing after Libelle, right out of the archive and into the street to ask her if she'd like to go for a coffee at some point soon. She had been rather surprised at the courage that she suddenly discovered in actually being able to ask rather than chickening out at the last moment – but she was more surprised by the fact that Libelle _wanted_ to go for a coffee, and she sounded genuinely interested. Clearly she had put all the old stuff in her past behind her. That's what Hermione wanted to do also.

But she was nervous… Some distrusting part of her couldn't help but be wary about the whole situation, what if this was a trick or a trap, designed to humiliate her? If that was the case then she was about to walk headlong into it – because a fresh start meant relinquishing the past, not holding on secretly to injustices wanting to be proved wrong. She had to afford the opportunity before deciding whether they both truly were able to have a fresh start. That didn't stop her from being nervous as she pulled clothes from her wardrobe to get ready for work, or for imagining 'what if' scenarios while she was waiting for the kettle to boil during her break. She was worried that she might do or say something offensive, she knew that the subconscious mind isn't always as good at keeping up to date with the conscious mind. All day she kept repeating 'Libelle', trying to force association from the name to the face. After six years of associating the features of that face with Draco's name, Hermione was concerned that something might slip out accidentally. She didn't want to be hurtful or insensitive – she would just have to be extra careful. All day long she felt the peculiarly nervous sensation grow in her stomach, progressing until in the last hour of her work it felt as though that 'butterfly' sensation was trying to burst into her veins and arteries – ready to flood her entire body.

Hermione took her time once it reached 5 o'clock, the anxious feeling having reached quite a peak inside her. She had no wish to be standing around outside waiting – especially as the sky seemed permanently overcast. Libelle was waiting at the bottom of the shallow steps which led up to the archive; she was wearing a pair of very high waisted denim jeans which accentuated the length and slimness of her legs. Hermione had always been relatively average height, but standing to Libelle she felt tiny. Libelle's legs were nearly as tall as she was – there was a pang of jealousy as she looked at Libelle's legs, they were legs which any person would be jealous of.

"Hi." Hermione said as she reached the bottom of the steps.

"Hey," Libelle smiled, she looked just as nervous as Hermione felt; there was a pause as Hermione tried to figure out what to do with himself. She hoped it wouldn't be this awkward the whole time.

"There's a couple of nice coffee shops just around the corner," Hermione began, "They're muggle ones, but they've always been rather nice." She could feel her face burning red as she suggested the muggle coffee shops to someone who had previously intimated that muggles were filth. "But we can go somewhere else if that's not okay…"

"No, that sounds great," Libelle agreed.

"Are you sure?" Hermione bit her lip.

"Really sure," Libelle insisted, "I'm trying to avoid my old haunts, I don't really want people I used to know having more ammunition against me." Hermione began to walk away from the archive, towards the end of the street that spiralled in towards the centre of London.

"Ammunition?" Hermione had asked without even thinking.

"My surname has been dragged through the mud, very publicly and humiliatingly for my parents." For a mere instant Hermione thought she saw the familiar Malfoy sneer on Libelle's face, but it was gone before she could check again and she tried to tell herself that it was her mind playing tricks on her as Libelle continued to speak. "Quite rightly too, I'm not saying they're innocent, or that I'm innocent, because we're not, but the papers will always latch on to some people and, well, Bellatrix is dead and so are half of the other Death Eaters, so it could hardly be them. The Malfoys are a good media choice." Libelle spoke matter of factly, but Hermione could detect the pang of regret that was an undertone. They had paused outside a small café whose glass panelling had steamed up from the heat inside in contrast to the temperature outside.

"Shall we go in here?" Hermione suggested, the cold wind was already biting at the exposed skin of her face and the threat of rain was becoming more present with every passing second.

"Yeah, it looks good." Libelle said, pushing the door open and allowing Hermione to go in front of her. Apart from a group of chattering teenage girls – still in their school uniforms – they were the only other customers in the café.

"What would you like?" Hermione asked, rummaging around in her pocket to find her purse – she knew it was in there, and extension charms had seemed a good idea when she first put them on, but now she could hardly ever find anything.

"Oh, it's alri-" Libelle began to protest; although in thinking about it, she wasn't even sure she had any muggle money on her.

"I invited you out for coffee, so I'll get it." Hermione insisted, she had found her purse now and she had such a determined look on her face that Libelle daren't argue with her.

"A pot of earl grey tea would be really nice, thank you." Libelle asked, "I'll get a table." As Hermione placed their order with the bored looking barista, Libelle climbed up the few steps to a raised platform which had several more tables and chose a seat. She watched as two of the school girls began dividing their friends' hair up into tiny strands and then braiding it very tightly. It was almost mesmerising watching their fingers twisting and pleating until they reached the end of the strand of hair and one of the other girls would hand them a plastic hair band that would hold the braid from falling out. Libelle had been so engrossed in watching this process that she hadn't noticed Hermione arriving at the table with a tray.

"It's fascinating, isn't it?" Hermione commented, nodding down at the girls. "They must be very well practiced to be able to do it that fast."

"It looks pretty amazing when it's finished." Libelle agreed, "I used to wish I had long enough hair to style, but all I could really do was slick it back. I had it at the bottom of my neck once, but apparently that was too unruly and I was forced to get it cut, which is ironic if you know the length of my father's hair." Libelle gave a faint laugh; it was peculiar – Hermione couldn't have verbalised what she thought this meeting was going to be like, but she certainly hadn't thought they would be sitting talking about hairstyles.

"Your hair is pretty long now though," Hermione told her, Libelle snorted as though in disbelief.

"It's not as long as theirs," She jerked her head in the young girl's direction. "Or yours." She turned to look at Hermione. "I can barely get my hair into two tiny ponytails." Libelle sighed, her hair was a bit of a soft spot with her – she knew that her hair would grow, but it just felt like it was taking a ridiculously long time. And although the pixie cut was fashionable at the moment, Libelle was concerned that that kind of cut would destroy her attempts to look feminine, she couldn't pretend that she hadn't gone through puberty and with short hair she did look like Draco.

"Your hair will be lovely when it's long – sleek and shiny, and blonde." Libelle threw a glance over at Hermione thinking that she had noticed this was a bit of a sore spot for Libelle, and was digging it; but to her surprise Hermione's cheeks had flushed pink after she said that.

"Thank you," Libelle replied, suddenly feeling rather bashful. "Your hair is lovely too – I used to want curly hair when I was little."

"I wish mine would decide whether it wanted to be curly or straight." She plucked at some of the hairs from her ponytail that had strayed over her shoulder. "and not just explode into a massive bush!"

"It's beautiful, different if you know what I mean." Libelle turned her attention back from the girls to their table, she hadn't realised that Hermione had not only bought her tea but there was also two plates with cake on them.

"I didn't know what kind of cake you like, so I just got one of each option." Hermione explained quickly when she noticed that Libelle was looking at them.

"You didn't have to do that!" Libelle protested, feeling slightly embarrassed at Hermione's over generosity.

"It's no problem." Hermione shrugged, "To be honest I wanted some cake and it would have been rude to buy a piece for myself but not for you."

"Well, thank you," Libelle answered, this was partially still peculiar for her that she was sitting right across from Hermione Granger.

"That one's lemon and that's chocolate." Hermione informed, pointing at each cake in turn.

"Can I have the lemon one?" Libelle asked.

"Be my guest." Hermione offered, Libelle reached across the table and picked up the plate.

"Unless, if you want that one I'll have whatever one you don't want."

"If I'm honest, I prefer chocolate over lemon, the darker the better." Hermione admitted, Libelle picked up her fork as this admission came out.

"I've never been the biggest fan of chocolate, I'll stick to bitter and sharp, just like me." Libelle trailed off towards the end of the sentence. Unfortunately for Libelle, Hermione's hearing was better than she expected.

"I don't believe you're either of those things." Hermione said through a mouthful of cake, then instantly looked embarrassed at her lack of manners. She covered her mouth with her hand and flushed a deep shade of pink. "I mean they're not very complimentary words to be using to describe a lemon – zesty, refreshing, tangy… I think they'd be more applicable to you than bitter, or sour." Hermione took a sip of her coffee while Libelle reeled at what Hermione had said.

"How do you do that?" Libelle asked, astounded.

"Do what?" Hermione said.

"Turn everything around to always look at the positive," Libelle explained, Libelle pushed a piece of cake around her plate. "I don't deserve your kindness." Goosebumps were erupting all along her arms, she hated it when she had to think about the past, she lowered her voice to almost a whisper. "I actually don't know how you can stand to be sitting at the same table as me."

"I thought this was going to be a fresh start – for both of us." Hermione said honestly.

"I don't know if I can do that though…" Libelle could feel herself shaking now, "I don't – it's like going back to who I was, and I want to forget that because I was horrible."

"I can't claim innocence either," Hermione shrugged. "But you know what, we've had quite a lot of horrible stuff through the past couple of years, and it's not that we're ever going to be able to forget it, but I want it to shape me for the future."

"I don't know whether to tell you you're ridiculous or incredible." Libelle shook her head. "I… I honestly can't understand, I wish I could."

"I think you've had more to deal with than most though," Hermione responded, Libelle looked up at her like she had just landed from another planet.

"More than facing the Dark Lord?" Libelle snorted, shaking her head and sounding as though he didn't believe a word of it.

"It's different kinds of things to face, isn't it?" The girls who were braiding one another's hair had swapped over now, so a new girl was sitting in the chair and she had begun to sing along with the small radio that the barista had turned on.

"You confuse me." The words came out sharper, much blunter than Libelle had intended them to come out.

"How?"

"I just don't understand how you can move on so readily, but still face the past." Libelle proffered, she placed the fork she had been eating her cake with down onto the table. "I've tried, I've needed to try with a clean slate because I can't intermingle what used to be my life then to what I want my life to be." Hermione still had her fork in her hand, and for a few moments she looked at a piece of cake she had split off of the slice, mashing it down towards the plate.

"Everything I did, with Harry and Ron, with Dumbledore's Army and the Order of the Phoenix, was to aim for freedom." Hermione explained slowly, pausing in between her phrases: "We spent the last few years at Hogwarts trying to fight for equality, because that was what Voldemort hated – the thought of mudbloods like me being just as worthy of status as those from deserving as wizards." That made Libelle feel rather ashamed, she had always fit into the category of the oppressor rather than the oppressed, she had happily gone along with those who were oppressive to others. Perhaps because she had always known that if they had the truth about her than she would have fitted into the oppressed side and she knew what happened to those who were oppressed: "I've been lucky," Libelle could hardly believe that – Hermione and the rest of the muggle born population had hardly been lucky under the Dark Lord's regime – and Libelle made a noise of dissent. "No I have been, because I am a mudblood and I don't fit the status that was required as acceptable; but despite that I've had friends and people who have stood alongside me during the fight against prejudice. I may not have been equal in the eyes of the Ministry or the Death Eaters, but I have remained free. So I've been lucky… I don't think you've ever been free Libelle." Libelle looked up, Hermione's hazel eyes were not wet or soppy looking, there was a determination about her gaze that Libelle could hardly bear to look away from. It was so pure and strengthening that she suddenly felt like shew was standing in a very bright spotlight. The very core of Libelle, which had once been strengthened like reinforced steel to never bend, splinter or break, now seemed to be reduced to a jelly-like substance which made all of her insides tremble.

"I… I-"Libelle's throat had suddenly constricted and she felt very paranoid, very quickly she pushed her chair back. "I… I'll be back in a minute, uh, I need to go to the bathroom."

The small bathroom was dimly lit, electric fairy lights were twisted around the mirror casting a strange yellow glow on the wall. Libelle clasped either side of the hand basin and put as much weight on it as she thought it could take; she hadn't expected to get this deep, or this serious. She ran her wrists under the cold tap water, trying to cool herself down and giving her a moment to recompose herself – she had thought she was fine, that she was up to it. Splashing a few drops of water onto her face, without dislodging any of the make up that she had so carefully applied this morning. She should stop this right now, go back up to the table and politely thank Hermione for inviting her out for coffee but this wasn't going to work. She didn't really want that though – under the nervousness and worry she felt that Hermione might suddenly decide to spread rumours around, Hermione was actually rather nice… and easy to talk to. It was like she was being taught a lesson, by Hermione Granger of all people, and while that was maybe what she deserved, she didn't know how to respond, without sounding jealous, petty, or without sounding like she had done in the past – a spiteful stuck up bitch with more privilege than sense.

Hermione bit her lip, half of her felt that this was going disastrously and it had been a huge mistake to even think of going for coffee with a Malfoy; the other half of her was rather hopeful, she wanted this to go well. Talking about the War probably hadn't been the best avenue of conversation to go down. Libelle was coming back now, Hermione was astonished by how young she looked – like a little lost child rather than an adult. She perched upon the edge of the chair, as if she was poised to spring, and looking like she was about to say something.

"Sorry," Hermione apologised quickly. "I know the War is not an easy thing to talk about, for anyone. I shouldn't have said anything, I didn't mean to make you feel uncomfortable."

"No, it's not that." Libelle shook her head slightly. "I think we _should_ talk about the War, let's not allow it to fade into the fear of the past, we have to keep talking about it so it doesn't happen again. It wasn't that that unnerved me, I think your comment about freedom was just a little bit close to the truth for comfort." Libelle grinned nervously.

"I am sorry, I didn't mean to make you feel uncomfortable." Hermione repeated, "I won't do it again, I promise." The second girl who had been getting her hair done at the table below was finished now, and flicked her long braided plaits over her shoulder as she stood up to allow the next girl to take her seat; Libelle was mulling over the decision of whether to stay or go now when she wondered about what Hermione had said about the War.

"Do you not talk about the War at all?" Libelle asked curiously, Hermione shook her head, making some of the hair she had tucked behind her ear come tumbling loose in front of her face. "Why not?" Hermione shrugged.

"Don't really have anyone to talk about it." Hermione mumbled, she had finished eating her chocolate cake now but she was still playing with her fork nervously.

"I would have thought that would be something that Ron and Harry would discuss quite a lot." Libelle said casually, she had even made a distinct effort to use Hermione's friends proper names rather than demoralizing nicknames that she had dubbed them whilst at school.

"Oh I suppose they probably do." Hermione told her non-chalantly, "But I haven't seen them since September." Libelle gaped at her, managing to recdover her resolve before Hermione had looked up at her.

"Why not?" Now it was Libelle who was trying not to pry where she wasn't wanted – but Hermione had spent _all_ of her time with Ron and Harry while at school, it seemed strange for them to not be talking in depth.

"I just haven't really…" She said, shifting uncomfortably in her hair. "Both of them are studying to be aurors, and I get that takes a chunk of their time, but I haven't really seen them."

"I thought you and Ron were an item?" Libelle asked lightly, Hermione snorted.

"For about three seconds during and after the War." Hermione said, "But things seem to be good ideas when you might be dead in a couple of hours, but in reality when you've got a whole lot to rebuild, and as Ron had a dead brother – things changed with us, it wasn't the right time." Hermione explained.

"That's a real shame," Libelle replied, "I'm sorry."

"It's alright, you don't need to be sorry." She reassured. "I haven't really seen anyone since the aftermath of the War – the ministry asked me to help them with some things, but there isn't really a paid position with the ministry for what I want to do. I don't really want to be an auror like Ron and Harry do, so I just need some time to think about what I want to do in the future."

"And that's working in a library?" Libelle commented, then realised just how judgemental that statement had sounded.

"No – and yes…" Hermione answered cryptically. "I love books, and I like working with them; I know it's not what I want to do forever, but it's giving me time."

"What do you want to do that there isn't a position for?" Libelle asked.

"I want to do something to help, to work with those less fortunate, the oppressed – get rights and better status for magical creatures, but that's not currently on the ministry's agenda." Hermione responded. "Unfortunately the wizarding world doesn't seem to work in the same way as the muggle one – there aren't really charities in the wizarding world, and I don't have the knowledge to set one up."

"That would be an interesting job!" Libelle exclaimed.

"It would be, but it's not an option – at the moment, but hopefully in the future it might be." Hermione agreed, "But that's enough about my boring life, what are you doing with yourself?" For a moment Libelle paused, looking at Hermione – it seemed that she was rather lonely. Not just lonely in the needing a bit of company today way, but lonely in the way that made the back of her eyes a little bit darker – and most people weren't aware of that dark hole until they experienced it for themselves, and then you could recognise it in someone else.

"Your life doesn't sound boring." Libelle protested, although it was granted, she could never imagine herself working in a library.

"Well it is to me, and I'm living it." Hermione said plainly, "I'd much rather hear about your life than mine. What are you doing at the moment?" It was no longer a pleasant request, Hermione's tone of voice made it plainly clear that she was finished with that part of the conversation.

"I'm taking my NEWTs at college." Libelle said eventually. "I wanted to get my NEWTs, well I need to get into the training programme."

"What training programme is it that you're wanting to do?" Hermione asked.

"Healer training." Libelle said quietly.

"Really?" Hermione sounded genuinely interested.

"Yeah," Libelle replied, "It's all I ever wanted to do since I was little."

"Well that's different…" Hermione said, "I got the impression from your father that you didn't need to work, and a healer is quite a demanding job."

"My father never wanted to work, not really – but I couldn't stand all that pomp and circumstance of monetary donations to generous causes – all that sucking up to people." Libelle answered, "It might have suited him fine, but I want to actually do something with my life rather than live off money I haven't earned."

"That's very noble." Hermione expressed, "That shows the kind of person that you are and the character that you have."

"I don't mean it to be noble." Libelle shook her head.

"No, I know…" Hermione told her, "But I think I made a lot of misjudgements about you when I was at school."

"You didn't know me when I was at school, no one did – so any judgements that you did make were about Draco, and that doesn't matter anymore." She said very concisely, and she was smiling so Hermione knew she wasn't annoyed or upset by those comments. "You know," Libelle leant forwards so her forearms were rested on the table, taking care so as not to disturb the cup, saucer and dessert plate. "I was worried about this – coming for coffee – I didn't know what was going to happen." She said honestly, "I didn't know whether you would hold a grudge from the past, or just want to find out why I'm wearing skirts now, but I don't think that I made a mistake in coming – I did right at the beginning, but you've proved me wrong and I'm pleasantly surprised."

Me too, I'm glad it's not been too traumatising. I just thought I should make a start on repairing some old burnt bridges." Hermione smiled.

"Well I think our bridge was burnt pretty badly from both sides, so it'll need both of us to repair it." Libelle acknowledged, "But I'd like to do that also."

"That's great." Hermione nodded, Libelle glanced up at the clock mounted above the barista's counter.

"Look, I'm going to have to go…" Libelle said, "I've got quite a lot of work for tomorrow, but it'd be really nice if we could do this again – meet up for coffee and a chat."

"That's alright," Hermione responded, "I don't want to keep you back."

"Can I send you an owl to arrange another time to meet up for coffee?"

"As long as you're sure." Hermione agreed.

"I'm sure," Libelle confirmed, she was collecting together her bag and coat. "I'll look forwards to it." Hermione was tempted to make a sceptical remark about that, until she looked up and saw Libelle's face – which was not sneering or sarky, but happy – genuinely open to what she had just suggested, and she felt herself soften.

"Me too." She replied, not loud enough for Libelle to be aware of.

"I'll see you later then." Libelle had picked up her bag and headed down the stairs off the little raised platform and out the café door, stopping to give a half wave as the door shut. The misted windows from the condensation inside the café meant Hermione couldn't tell if Libelle had looked back.

* * *

 **A/N:** **Hey, I'd love to know what you think/feel about this chapter! Or the entire story so far! :)**


	4. Chapter 4

How many days was it appropriate to wait before she sent Hermione a message? That was the perpetual question going round and round in Libelle's mind. It had been three days since she had been for coffee with Hermione, and Libelle had not forgotten her promise to send Hermione a message – but she hadn't wanted to seem too eager. She couldn't actually get her mind away from their meeting, everything she seemed to do brought her mind back round to Hermione. It was strange – a few months ago she had thought she would never again want to lay eyes upon anyone she had once known during her school days, but Hermione had changed all that. It was odd that one meeting could change all of that. Her college coursework had suddenly taken a back seat in her mind, even though she knew she ought to be focusing on that with mock exams next week and the real ones not much further after. Not even her new friends and their invites out over the weekend could alter the course of her thoughts. It was exacerbated further by the fact that she couldn't quite place what her thoughts and feelings, surrounding Hermione were. She liked Hermione – she always had done when they were at school, but a disdain and class purity had meant that Draco could never have shown anything other than hatred. It made Libelle think about Snape – and the information that Harry Potter had made very public once the War was over – that Snape had loved Lily Evans for so much of his life, yet had been forced into separation because of his house at Hogwarts and the purity of race that that demanded. Hermione had always had that spark that set her apart from other people, she had seen that and wanted to do something about it… Unfortunately Harry and Ron had also noticed the spark in her, and they were more fitting friends than a pureblood Slytherin. But that wasn't who Libelle was anymore – she was disconnected from that identity. For the first time in a few months, Libelle really wished that she could go home and talk to her mother about all of this. She knew she could if she really wanted to, her mother had already had to go through the belief that her son was gay, only to eventually understand that she never had a son in the first place, and although she had been wonderful in terms of what Libelle needed, especially in talking to her father and pacifying him slightly, there were some things that she just couldn't understand… There were some things that Libelle couldn't quite comprehend herself – things that she thought would become simpler once that she had gone through the transition and was living as who she always wanted to be… but so far it hadn't quite worked out like that. Nothing ever seemed to be clear cut – not her current life, not her future, not her relationship with her parents, not her feelings about Hermione. She knew if she went to her mother that she would be listened to, but she couldn't imagine the horror and confusion that would play out on her face if she tried to explain that she had "feelings" for another girl. She had almost tried to explain when she told her about needing to be allowed to live as a woman that this meant ultimately she was heterosexual, rather than a gay man, but now that was all being thrown into contention. What exactly did it mean? Was she some kind of confused, closeted lesbian? Or worse – bisexual – as no one ever seemed to believe that they either existed or were a legitimate orientation. She didn't know, and frankly didn't feel the need to be compartmentalised by a swathe of different labels, none of which ever would categorise who she was. She was Libelle, that was all and – right at this moment – Libelle liked Hermione.

There was a new spring in Hermione's step as she set out for work on Monday morning, she couldn't quite define or even put her finger on her reason for her uplift in mood which had occurred over the weekend. Perhaps it was because the cold winter winds had begun to relinquish their grip on the city, which meant that the weak spring sun was only just beginning to raise the temperature. Hermione had even been able to pad about on her wooden floorboards in bare feet without the fear of them turning blue. The weather generally had an iota of presence on the moods of people that worked in the archive and lived in her block of flats, but it may not have been the only cause for the renewed happiness and buoyancy that Hermione was feeling. A fair amount of that was probably from the realisation that Hermione had had whilst contemplating her conversation with Libelle. Hermione enjoyed working at the archive, but it wasn't what she wanted to do forever – and she might as well walk towards it now otherwise it may never happen. But admitting that she had not seen or heard from Ron or Harry in quite a few months had taken a weight off of her mind; for some reason she felt that it had opened herself up some more. She felt at ease, so her weekend seemed to have been flooded with new options and possibilities, and it all was glorious. It was all down to the conversation that she had with Libelle as well – and how easy and natural that conversation had been. Hermione still had to remind herself that their conversation had actually taken place, it hadn't been some kind of bizarre dream.

Libelle was entirely different to what Hermione had expected – gentle, well mannered, ambitious, and caring – she was a far cry from her former life as a hardened Death Eater and purist. She was blossoming with her new sense of identity – and like how the perfumed scent of petals attracts the honeybee, Hermione felt drawn by Libelle, and hopefully would be able to be part of her blooming. Secretly, when Libelle had said she would like to meet up for coffee and a chat again, something inside Hermione had leapt in excitement. It was one of those sensations where your insides felt like you had missed a step on your way downstairs and momentarily left your stomach behind.

Now that sensation had passed, Hermione was left with an old restless feeling that wasn't exactly uncomfortable, but that was constantly present. For the past few months all of Hermione's life felt like it was becoming more and more tunnel-visioned, with everything becoming darker and less clear, but suddenly it felt like her eyes had been cleaned and she could now see with 20:20 vision… but that didn't necessarily make her any less confused.

 _'But you don't really know her.'_ This really was not the time for Libelle to be having an internal dialogue.

'But I do know her, I knew her at school…' Libelle argued back against the small voice in her head.

' _Ah but you don't really know her, you only ever saw her from afar while at school, you never knew her and she didn't know you.'_ Libelle could almost feel her face configuring into a pout; she needed to be revising, she had a preliminary paper that was going to be marked as though it was going to be lightly marked answers because you were nearly there. So right now Libelle should be focusing on the last minute cramming of information into her brain, but that wasn't what it was allowing her to do. That little voice at the back of her head – her conscience, or tempter, or whatever anyone called it – would not shut up. This exam: she needed to be focusing on it, if only she had a brain and memory like Hermione's. It would have been impossible to notice at school Hermione's capacity for memorizing whole passages of text as easily as though it was song lyrics or your favourite poem. Libelle had a decent enough memory, but no where near that kind of photographic recall… Hermione must have breezed through her exams – she probably would have breezed through them without even trying. She was thinking about Hermione again, rather than her work. She really needed to snap out of it.

"That was horrendous…" Libelle's friend, Ceri ran a hand over her face, pulling her skin and causing her eyes to bulge momentarily. There was a torrent of talking as all of the students emerging from the room that their mock exam had been in burst into speech after nearly two hours of compressing silence. The air felt much more cool and spacious out in the corridor area than it had been in the exam room. "I think my brain might be leaking out of my ears…" Ceri pressed both of her hands to her ears and shook her head slightly; she looked like a dog trying to remove water from its ears. "I hadn't even looked over the subjects that any of the second questions were on! I just had to pick one and try and bluff as much as I could without purely making it up."

"It could have been worse…" Libelle replied calmly, Ceri looked at her scathingly.

"Yes, I could have known none of the questions at all." She quipped back, "It's alright for you, you seem to remember everything without needing to look at it more than once."

"That's not true, and you know that." Libelle refuted, "I have to study and revise just like you do."

"Yeah, but you just look at things once and remember them for the rest of your life!"

"Not quite," Libelle was thinking about what Ceri would say if she met Hermione and witnessed _her_ memory, then she might rethink her attitude about Libelle's brain.

"What?" Ceri asked, as they walked along the corridor towards the entrance of MAE.

"What?" Libelle responded blankly.

"You know what!" Ceri commented, "That brig gin that you've had plastered across your face all morning."

"No I haven't," Libelle could feel her cheeks going red as she denied this – had she really been looking like the grinning idiot?

"Yeah, alright…" Ceri didn't sound at all convinced; there was a pause before Ceri asked. "Who are they then?"

"Who's who?"

"Oh come of it!" Ceri nudged Libelle playfully, she was quite a bit shorter than Libelle but Ceri always managed to poke her bony elbow into the soft spot in Libelle's ribs.

"Ow!" Libelle clutched her ribs. "What?"

"You've spent half of the morning with a dreamy far-away look plastered across your face, which is not like you most of the time." Ceri stated firmly.

"Well-" Libelle began, but Ceri continued over her.

"And we had an exam today, and you normally spend the mornings of exams with your nose jammed in the textbook open, but you barely even looked at it. And you didn't ask me to test you on anything." Ceri said, "Now I'm not saying you _need_ that extra revision, not with the brain you have, it's just fairly unusual for you _not_ to do that revision anyway…" Ceri concluded, she had put her hands on her hips like she wasn't going to accept no as a valid response. "So you either tell me what's going on, or I'll keep poking you until you do." She shot out her hand, prodding Libelle in the ribs once more and causing Libelle to yelp in fright.

"Alright, alright!" Libelle conceded while trying to dodge Ceri's fingers. "It's complicated."

"When is it not with you?" Ceri pouted as though her breakthrough had been useless; Libelle wasn't entirely sure whether she should be offended by that comment. "Come on, let's go for a drink." Ceri hooked her arm through Libelle's and began to pull her towards the door, but Libelle resisted.

"No, I need to go and study for –" But Ceri was much stronger than Libelle despite a foots' difference in size.

"You're coming for a drink first, and then you can go and study, or stare into space for the next couple of hours." Ceri insisted, Libelle knew there was no point in arguing with Ceri once she had decided something, so she allowed herself to be dragged along the corridors to the entrance and out into the brisk afternoon air.

"Come on, let's go in here." They were hardly a street away from MAE when Ceri shepherded Libelle towards a rather grotty and dingy looking pub.

"What? In here?" Libelle questioned, "Oh come on, you've got to be joking."

"Trust me," Ceri said, pushing Libelle in through the door, past several low sofas surrounding coffee tables and a wood burning stove, and towards the back of the pub where two large windows overlooking a garden that was almost overrun with lavender and violets, Ceri chose a table right by the window, overlooking the garden.

"It's beautiful," Libelle said, looking out into the garden as she sat down.

"I told you to trust me." Ceri smirked, "And it's not just pretty to look at, the barman in here makes the most divine cocktails." She grinned, "So what would you like?"

"I'll have whatever you're having." Libelle replied, Ceri raised her eyebrows and sloped off to the bar. Libelle's head was buzzing in the aftermath of that practice exam, and with the prospect of another one tomorrow. Ceri was leaning over the bar to speak to the barman, Libelle couldn't help but be slightly jealous of Ceri – everything about her was incredibly _feminine_. Which was strange as she had grown up with her dad and younger brother. Unlike a lot of the other students at MAE, Ceri had received a Hogwarts letter – but it had come as a shock as her dad was a muggle; before that point she had always thought her mum had just run away and started a new family, but it seemed that she had left because she had a secret: she was a witch, and so Ceri and her brother Rhys had magic too. But that hadn't washed with her dad, he thought it must be some kind of elaborate practical joke that someone was playing on them, even when a woman who had called herself Professor McGonagall had turned up at their front door to try and explain to them, he hadn't accepted it. So Ceri, and subsequently her brother, had gone to a muggle high school and been forced to study geography, maths and science all the while knowing that they were different from everyone else who was there. Until her third year when inexplicably a pile of textbooks exploded when she was in a fit of rage at a teacher, the school has accused her of making a bomb with the intention to hurt and she had been expelled. Her dad had gone ballistic at her, but she had no other explanation for what had happened than 'it was magic'. Then she had received an official warning letter from a Ministry of Magic telling her that if she performed any more magic while underage she would be called to a hearing. Ceri had been angry and conflicted, on the one hand she had her dad who wanted the best for her but clearly didn't know what to do about the situation. Then something neither of them had expected happened – Ceri's mother turned up.

Most of Ceri's childhood fantasies concerning her mother began with her appearing in a puff of smoke – and that was before they knew about the magic – but that was what literally happened. Her mother explained that she worked for the Ministry of Magic, and she knew her ex partner and kids had gone off the radar, that Ceri and Rhys weren't at Hogwarts, but she had no idea that they had been going to a muggle high school until Ceri had broke the code of secrecy. Her arrival hadn't gone well to begin with, Ceri realised that it wasn't a fairy tale and not everything could be fixed with a wave a metaphorical wand. Her mother was furious with her father for not letting the two of them go to Hogwarts, but their dad protested – how was he supposed to make valued calculations for his kids if he didn't know anything about the world they were entering into. It had taken a long time, months before Ceri's dad had taken even longer for their dad to realise that they couldn't just pretend that they didn't have magic in them, and if they couldn't just pretend that they didn't have magic in them, and if they did it was more likely to end in ruin – Ceri had demonstrated that already. Eventually their mum had begun to teach them – she took them to buy their first wands and spell books, she taught them the theory and practice behind the major subjects within the wizarding world. They couldn't go to Hogwarts now, they were too late and had missed too much, but at least they were beginning to learn… And that was how Ceri ended up at MAE to do her OWLS and subsequently her NEWTs, to finally get the magical education she had needed – it was the reason she was older than most of the other people in the class, because she had had to catch up with them. She had told all of this to Libelle on their second day in the same class – when it seemed apparent that the two of them were going to get on, and it made Libelle even more impressed. Ceri had a concentration in her magical work that was amazing, but she also retained a grasp of the muggle world that was invaluable – especially in the current wizarding world. Ceri trusted Libelle with all of that, and she didn't seem the sort to open up easily – she was tough and could look after herself. It had felt only appropriate then that Libelle confide some of herself to Ceri, but what she had ended up telling her had only been the tip of the iceberg. Libelle had spoken nothing about her past, her Death Eater history and how she had been involved in the death of one of the greatest wizards of all time; all of that was too difficult to talk about. So instead she had talked about what she felt was obvious – that she was transgender and trying to finally live as a woman full time, and none of that had seemed to faze Ceri at all.

Ceri came back to the table, carrying two glasses filled with sunset orange liquid.

"What is it?" Libelle asked as Ceri sat down the glass in front of her.

"Sex on the beach." Ceri responded, sipping from the edge of her glass. "It's phenomenal, try it!" Libelle picked up her glass, and it was like a fruity explosion had gone on in her mouth.

"Once again I must bow to your superior knowledge." Libelle agreed, savouring the taste of the cocktail.

"Good," Ceri agreed. "Right, so now are you going to tell me about who you've been grinning over all day?"

"Remember how we went to the archive," Libelle begun, unsure of how much detail she should go into.

"And you went running home claiming that you weren't feeling well?" Ceri injected.

"Yeah," Libelle nodded, "That day. Well I saw someone that I had known at school and I freaked out a little bit."

"So this person, how well did you know them?" Ceri asked, her inflection of her words suggested that she assumed that this was more than just a friendly acquaintance; she wiggled her eyebrows while stirring her cocktail as though to further emphasise this.

"No, not like that." Libelle shook her head. "We didn't get on actually, we were in the same year but got sorted into rival houses." Libelle paused to take a drink of her cocktail, but Ceri didn't speak, she just waited for Libelle to finish. "I wasn't the nicest of people during school, and I panicked because they had only ever known me as…"

"As Draco?" Ceri supplied, Libelle flinched at the mention of her former name.

"Unfortunately yes." Libelle said, "And it's not like I've undergone radical reconstructive surgery or anything, I still look the same as I did at school, mostly anyway."

"Okay, I'm following you so far… Not entirely sure how it ends up with you grinning all over your face." Ceri nodded, she was nearly finished her cocktail already.

"Well when I saw them in the archive and panicked, I kind of shouted… and was maybe a little bit threatening, but I thought they'd go talking to all their friends and news would get out – and I don't need any more rumours circulating about me than there already are." Libelle explained, her words coming out in a gush. "But then I felt really bad about the whole thing so I went back to apologise and we ended up deciding to go for coffee."

"That's with that Hannah girl, or whatever her name was…" Ceri announced unexpectedly.

"What?" Libelle blurted, "You mean Hermione?"

"That was it!" Ceri nodded, "I knew it began with a H."

"How did you know that?" Libelle questioned in a state of disbelief.

"Well you had run off during that archive trip, so you missed us being toured around the special collection bit, and then talked to us about referencing for about an hour. One group got this footery old guy, but we ended up with Hermione." Ceri told her, "If you meant that you wanted to know how I guessed you meant her, then she was the only one working in that archive who was anywhere close to you age. Unless you're secretly in your thirties!" Libelle couldn't help but laugh along with Ceri.

"Alright smart arse, you've got it right." Libelle admitted, "I went for coffee with Hermione on Friday, and at first I thought it was going to be a monumental disaster – but it actually turned out to be really good, and we spoke about doing it again soon, and now I don't know how long I should wait before contacting her again. The whole thing just feels kind of weird."

"Weird how?" Ceri proceeded after a few seconds thought; Libelle unhelpfully shrugged and played with the stirrer in her cocktail.

"It's weird that we actually managed to get along – I wasn't being overdramatic or anything when I said we didn't get along at school." She said and then, taking a drink of her cocktail, added: "And I guess I'm not entirely sure of how I feel about her either."

"As in…?" She asked and this time Libelle nodded.

"Like I thought…" Libelle started, then stopped abruptly. "I don't know."

"Come on, try me." Ceri encouraged.

"Do you want to get another drink?" Libelle suggested, aware that Ceri was sitting with an empty glass in front of her, Ceri raised her eyebrow. "I'm not trying to change the subject, I promise."

"Alright," Ceri agreed, she delved into her bag to try and find some money.

"It's okay, I'll get it." Libelle insisted. At the bar she fumbled in her purse, trying to locate the muggle money that she had decided to carry around for times like this.

"What can I get you darling?" A well built man behind the bar asked Libelle, instantly making her nervous about the name of the drink she was ordering.

"Can I have two s… two of the same?" She chickened out, gesturing at the table that she and Ceri were occupying.

"Of course, two sex on the beaches coming right up!" He responded, reaching underneath the bar for two glasses and grinning. Libelle felt rather awkward as she stood and watched him mix up the drinks, then retrieve her change from the till. "There you go darling." He handed across her change and winked as she picked up both of the glasses, Libelle could feel her cheeks burning scarlet in response.

"So, you're not sure how you feel about her because…" Ceri asked, hardly giving Libelle time to sit down.

"I guess part of my reasoning for convincing my parents to allow me to live as Libelle is because that effectively makes me heterosexual."

"Would it have really mattered to them otherwise?" Ceri inquired.

"I don't think it would have to my mother, I think she realised how unhappy it was making me." Libelle answered honestly. "I'm not so sure my father would have taken the same attitude." The words were painful for Libelle to admit. "I think he would have seen it as less of a disgrace than having a gay son."

"Why would that be a disgrace?" Ceri sounded genuinely confused at this.

"My father is very old fashioned," Libelle expanded, "Three years ago that he was telling me he had found a suitable marriage match for me – a young lady who would fit in with the respectability of our family, and would be of the correct upbringing and demureness to bear a child with the Malfoy name."

"You've got to be kidding me! Tell me you're not serious about that!" Ceri was staring at Libelle with her eyes wide, absolutely astounded by this bit of information.

"No I'm deadly serious…" Libelle told her, "That was the initial reason that I told my parents I was gay, to try and get out of that marriage."

"That's insane 'Belle!" Ceri had clasped her hands over her mouth. "And how did they react to that?"

"Not well…" Libelle told her, "That's kind of why the prospect of me being a straight woman was more appealing than being gay."

"And now you're not sure where you stand?" Ceri asked, "Because you've got feelings for someone who doesn't fit the picture perfect ideals that your parents have for you." Libelle downed the last of what was in her first glass.

"Well yeah…" Libelle sighed, "And I don't know how to go about telling them that."

"Do you need to tell them just yet?" Ceri asked, she had nearly finished her second cocktail and was beginning to eye up Libelle's unstarted one.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, this Hermione – do you know if she feels the same way as you do?" Ceri said, Libelle shrugged. "Why don't you just let things play out? Go for another coffee, spend some time with her before worrying yourself about something that might not matter in the long run."

"And if it does matter in the long run? Maybe not her, but what if there's another girl that comes along?" She asked, sounding rather agitated.

"Then it happens." Ceri placated, "What if the man of your dreams comes along? You can cross whatever bridge when you come to it, you don't need to spend time now planning alternate routes."

"I guess so…" Libelle agreed, then before Ceri could pounce on Libelle's full glass, she picked it up and nearly drained it. There was a small silence as Libelle played with the glace cherry on her cocktail stick which had been in her drink.

"She must be pretty nice if she's been the reason for you grinning so much." Ceri commented.

"She is nice." Libelle nodded. "Really nice."

"Then stop hanging around, send her a message and see if she wants to go for a coffee! Or better still, invite her to get cocktails with you, get to know her and then you'll be able to plan from there."

"Yeah, I guess you're right." Libelle agreed.

"Of course I am, I'm always right!" Ceri responded with a wink.

"I'll send her an owl tonight." Libelle decided.

"And?"

"I'll send you one if she gets back to me." Libelle assured her. "I'll keep you up to date."

"You'd better, it might be the only thing that will keep me awake during the horrors of studying for tomorrow."

"We probably shouldn't have been drinking cocktails tonight." Libelle muttered.

"If anything the alcohol might make revision more interesting." Ceri sighed, she was gathering her purse and other belongings into her bag, getting ready to leave. "Come on then," Ceri linked her arm through Libelle's once they were both on their feet. "And I expect an owl tonight, or tomorrow morning at the latest – okay? No chickening out!"

"Okay." Libelle agreed as they left the pub.

* * *

 **A/N:** **I'd love to know what you think/feel about this story :)**


	5. Chapter 5

Perhaps Hermione had gauged the situation wrongly, she thought that Libelle had been going to contact her to arrange them meeting again. What if she was meant to be the one doing the arranging? She didn't have an owl or any means of contacting her, or maybe she was expecting too much, or for her to get in contact quicker than was reasonable. Hermione knew she was lonely, but she had to remember that not everyone's life was like hers, other people had groups of friends to keep them occupied, that they could sit and talk to for hours, and have a laugh with. Hermione used to have that, but not anymore, but Libelle might have that, Hermione didn't know. When you're lonely the world feels smaller, and you get used to instantaneous decisions because normally you are the only one making the decisions, and so to allow that to expand for someone else to make a decision feels like a very big deal. She considered contacting Ron and Harry to see how they were getting on with their auror training, especially now that Libelle had helped her see that she had to actively work towards what she wanted to do – and if that meant trying to get in through a route that she had previously disregarded, then she should give it a try. As a result of that persuasion she had spent her Monday afternoon and evening drafting out an application form for why she wanted to study magical law. If she applied for the training course and got in, it would only be a few years until she was fully qualified, and then she would be able to use whatever expertise she had gained to actually make a difference. That road seemed to have logical steps which would eventually empower her, whereas currently wallowing in loneliness while working in an archive wasn't ever going to open up possibilities for what she wanted to do.

Maybe Libelle had just been being polite about meeting up again; maybe she hadn't really wanted but just didn't know how to get away without suggesting anything. Hermione had really hoped that they would be able to meet up again; it wasn't often that adults got another chance to have a fresh start with someone. It had been a really nice prospect.

The large bay windows in the bedroom of Hermione's flat whistled when it was windy. She had found that out during the winter – and although she had attempted to repair it, and even once put a silencing charm on it when the wind was bad, it never stayed quiet for very long. At first it had bothered her, keeping her awake or causing her to wake during the middle of the night, but now she had grown rather accustomed to the sound. So when she woke during the middle of Monday night she assumed that it must have been a large gust of wind that had awoken her. The problem with waking up in the middle of the night was that Hermione often struggled to get back to sleep. Her hair was still damp from the shower she had had earlier on in the evening, she brushed her hair out of her face and listened to the sounds of her flat. There was something unusual, something different – that she couldn't quite place into the normality of her flat; a low tapping and scraping that she didn't know. She sat up and looked to the bottom of her bed, where Crookshanks usually laid curled up, but the cat was missing. Casting her eye around the dimly lit room she caught sight of his bottle brush tail poking out from underneath the heavy curtains in front of her windows.

"What are you looking at Crookshanks?" She mumbled sleepily, pushing back her duvet and wincing when her bare feet touched the cold floorboards. The cat meowed mournfully in response, but did not move. Hermione pulled the curtain back; the night was still at its darkest pitch and the little balls of orange glow illuminated around the street lamps cast an eerie glow down on the silent street. Crookshanks wasn't just staring forlornly into the dark space, perched on the outward ledge of the bay window was an owl, a letter clutched in its beak. It must have been the source of the noise that Hermione had been hearing. The bay windows were heavy to open, and Hermione had to use all of her force to pull it up. On second thoughts she knew she probably should have just used her wand, but that would have meant crossing back across the room to retrieve it from her bedside table. A blast of cold air hit Hermione as the window opened and the bird hopped inside.

"Who are you from?" Hermione asked as it deposited it's letter upon the seat of a chair and perched on the back of it. "Lumos!" Hermione said, in such a close proximity to her wand it lit up and cast a pure white light up the walls. She reached over to grab it so she would be able to see the writing on the parchment. The scroll of parchment was furled so tightly that if it hadn't been secured by a piece of ribbon, it wouldn't have held. Hermione's name was directly on the centre, scribed in beautifully sculpted handwriting.

 _'Dear Hermione,_

 _Sorry for sending this so late – I'm not entirely sure where you live and how long it will take to get to you. I'm studying for a practice exam I have tomorrow, and I kind of lost track of time (I'm sure you know what that's like!). I was wondering if you'd like to come for a drink on Thursday night? I'll be finishing my mock exams and I want to celebrate, I know this great little pub that does the best cocktails. If that's not your sort of thing just let me know and we could do something different. I don't want you to feel like I'm forcing you to come, I just thought it would be nice to meet up again. Can you let me know whether that sounds alright with you? Hope to see you soon,_

 _Libelle x_

 _P.S. I've told Prince (my owl) to stay just in case you want to respond, (I wasn't sure whether you have an owl or not!), if you want him to go away just tell him – he's pretty good at obeying orders!'_

Crookshanks was staring up at the owl rather suspiciously; the bird was suddenly encroaching upon his space, and he had never been one to trust easily. In the quiet Hermione could hear the low grumbling that he made when he was uncertain about things.

"Shush Crookshanks," Hermione told him. "This is Prince, he's not for target practice…" She carried her illuminated wand over to her desk, selected a piece of parchment and grabbed her quill.

 _'Hi Libelle,_

 _Thanks for your message. I hope your exams aren't creating too much stress for you. I'd love to come out on Thursday! Shall I come and meet you at college? See you soon,_

 _Hermione x.'_

She rolled up the piece of parchment that she used and wrote Libelle's name on the front, then carried it over to the chair where the bird was still sitting.

"Here you go Prince," Hermione held the letter firmly until it was clamped into Prince's beak, "Will you take that back to Libelle for me?" She reached out her finger and gently stroked the side of the owl's head; it gave a faint hoot before taking off through the window which Hermione had left open. Hermione waited by the open window for a few minutes until she could no longer see the dot in the sky that was Prince. The night outside was still quiet only right off into the distance was there a blurring of the navy sky – light was beginning to creep in. She closed the window and padded back to her be, the duvet still ruffled from when she had gotten out. She clambered back into her bed and could feel the warm weight of Crookshanks at her feet.

"I'm going out on Thursday." She told the cat, who was now purring in comfort. "With Libelle, for cocktails." Crookshanks continued to pur, and she felt a similar glow inside her. "Nox." She mumbled, the warmth inside her and around her tempting her back to sleep, the light from her wand tip extinguished and she fell back into a sleep.

"So?" Ceri was standing with her hand on her hop at the entrance to the college building, Libelle had just turned up looking more dishevelled than she usually did: it looked like she had been up all night studying.

"So what?" Libelle asked, her mind felt like a wrung sponge and she was in no way ready for this exam. This response, however, was not what Ceri wanted to hear – she folded her arms across her chest in fury and scowled.

"You know perfectly well what! You told me you were going to let me know – about Hermione!" Ceri replied sharply.

"I know, I know – but I didn't get a reply until this morning and by the time I sent Prince to you I would have already seen you." Libelle told her.

"So you did it?" Libelle questioned excitedly. "You wrote to her?"

"Yeah." Libelle said, she felt that Ceri's enthusiastic response was even more excited about it than she felt. "I told her I had my mock exams this week and that I wanted to celebrate when we're finished on Thursday, and I asked her if she wanted to go for a drink with me."

"And?" Ceri prompted eagerly, Libelle could feel her cheeks beginning to flush pink with this conversation. "What was her response?"

"Yeah, she's going to come." Libelle couldn't help but grin at this.

"You are just going the two of you, aren't you?" Ceri asked, "Don't feel you need to invite anyone else. Get to know her, see if she likes you!" Ceri almost sang the last phrase.

"I don't think she does, not like that." Libelle answered quietly, glancing around to make sure no one had overheard them. The problem with a small college like MAE was there wasn't enough gossip for the grapevine to be satisfied, and Libelle didn't particularly want to be discussed as topic of the week.

"You never know, 'Belle, you never know." Ceri said blandly.

"I don't know, but I can be pretty sure." Libelle answered, "I went to school with her, remember?"

"Yeah, and she went to school with you – do you think you're everything she thought about you?" Ceri retaliated, for a moment all of Libelle's school days flashed before her eyes. Draco acting like a dick, desperate to be someone, to be taken seriously – joining the Death Eaters to honour the family tradition, and to try and prove to himself that he could be what was wanted of him, that he could be _him._ Libelle suppressed an involuntary shudder, whatever Hermione had thought about Draco at school it couldn't have been pleasant.

"She slapped me once, at school." Libelle recalled, "Like a proper slap too, not just a little tap."

"What had you done?" Ceri asked.

"I wasn't a very nice person at school," Libelle precluded warningly. "And I called her a mudblood."

"Well you deserved that slap then, didn't you?" Ceri said bluntly.

"I certainly did, I just don't want her to think that's what I'm like." Libelle voiced her worry; the two of them were standing underneath a high window, they still had a little bit of time before their practice exam, and some other students were beginning to congregate.

"Well prove to her that that's not what you're like anymore." Ceri let her bag slip off her shoulder and placed it at her feet. "It sounds like she already knows that you're not like that anymore, otherwise she wouldn't be willing to meet up with you surely."

"I hope so…" Libelle muttered, "Anyway, we should be looking over transfiguration, now while we've got the opportunity." Ceri rolled her eyes at Libelle.

"You always take these things so seriously…" She commented, slouching against the wall.

"Of course I do." Libelle agreed, "If I get good results in these practice exams I might get offered a place in one of the healer courses instead of having to wait for my actual results and making a mad dash to try and secure a place."

"I see," Ceri grinned. "I think I'll be at the front of the mad dash."

"Hermione, _Hermione."_ Gladioli's shrill whisper rung through the quiet archive; Hermione had been working at one of the shelves close to the front so heard Gladioli before she became a nuisance.

"What?" Hermione hissed lowly, sticking her head out from round the end of the row she was working in. Gladioli waved something at her, trying to gesture for Hermione to come and collect it.

"This arrived for you!" She said, extending her hand with a letter in it right out in front of her.

"Alright, thank you very much." Hermione responded, taking the letter from her, she recognized the excessively tightly furled scroll and the neat handwriting on the outside; Gladioli stood, waiting expectantly. "Can I help?" Hermione asked her after a few seconds.

"Ain't you going to open it?" She asked, being a receptionist must be deadly dull if she was getting her excitement through watching someone else open a letter. "Who's it from? Have you got a boyfriend?"

"No." Hermione answered indignantly, "I'm just arranging to go out with some old school friends. Thanks for delivering this." She indicated the letter and turned to go back to the row she had been working in, leaving Gladioli standing looking disappointed.

Back in the row that Hermione was working in she unstuck the scroll and allowed it to unwind, she could feel herself smiling before she had even read any of the message.

 _'Hi Hermione,_

 _Thanks for getting back to me so quickly :). That sounds like a great plan! (Just to check, I'm hoping you know where the MAE college building is! If you don't, I've included a map of the surrounding area so you can find it. If you do know where it is please ignore all of this.) I'll meet you about five-ish outside the building, and then we can go for drinks. Looking forwards to seeing you, Libelle x'_

Underneath the message there was a little hand drawn map including several streets and buildings with arrows depicting exactly what they are, and a tiny little stick figure person standing outside the building labelled MAE. Hermione could only assume that that stick figure was meant to be herself. Hermione thought of Libelle, she was probably in her exam now, she thought how strange the whole situation was… Then she smiled down at the parchment, she couldn't verbalise exactly why, but the message made her very happy. This was Tuesday and on Thursday she'd be seeing Libelle again.

Libelle tugged nervously at the hem of her skirt, trying to make the ruffled hem sit more neatly just above her knee.

"This is too much, isn't it?" She asked for the umpteenth time, Ceri rolled her eyes as Libelle continued to straighten her perfectly straight skirt.

"No it's not," Ceri replied with a sigh, "You look really, really lovely." Libelle smiled uncertainly; she knew that she should be thinking about more important things right now – like this morning's exam – but that was difficult. She had spent more time doing her hair than she had checking over her defence notes.

"Are you sure?" Libelle repeated.

"Absolutely positive." Ceri told her, Ceri was looking a tad more dishevelled than usual, perhaps she had finally heeded Libelle's advice and was taking these exams seriously. "So where are you taking her?" Ceri asked, readjusting the bag she had over her shoulder.

"I thought we could go to that pub, the one we went to on Monday," Libelle answered. "Have a few drinks in celebration of mocks being over before I have to start working towards the real exams."

"And try and get into her pants at the same time," Ceri commented cheekily but this comment had the opposite result to the desired reaction. Libelle instantly felt like she had been doused in cold water; getting into someone's pants – as Ceri so delicately put it – was the last thing that Libelle wanted to think about. How on earth could anyone else feel comfortable, with her body when she couldn't herself – when she wasn't right? Her body didn't match who she was, and the reminder of that hung over all throughout her day. Getting dressed in the morning was always the first jolt that the outside body didn't match the inside one, and she didn't want to look like a drag act which meant that she did have to be careful with some clothes that displayed certain parts of her anatomy that she was yet to get rid of. Going to the toilet, too, was a frequent reality check; she was always aware that in a public place – not at MAE – someone might challenge her for using the ladies toilets, that was always a very present reminder that she still didn't fit. Even today when she had selected her outfit so carefully, and had strapped it up so thoroughly that it couldn't be seen from any angle, but made her a tad concerned about the ability to pee; and she was wearing the bra that she had bought herself and filled with silicone padding which was meant to mould to the cup shape and give the impression of a fuller cup size (or in Libelle's case any cup size, she was still flat up and down). She had taken her time on her make up this morning as well, trying to accentuate the more feminine of her features and diminish the masculine. Even with all of those efforts that she had made today, a single comment like that from Ceri made her come crashing down, reminding her of the truth.

"Why do you always have to do that?" Libelle snapped, demonstrably aggrieved.

"Do what?" Ceri asked, looking genuinely taken aback by Libelle's sharpness.

"Always reduce everything down to the sexual side?" Libelle stated. "That's not what I'm looking for right now, and I doubt anyone would be interested, seeing that I have the wrong fucking genetalia." Libelle sighed, she hadn't meant to sound so militant; Ceri was looking sheepish. "Sorry… It's just that's not really what's on my mind right now."

"Sorry, I didn't think…" Ceri apologised. "I forget, I'm so used to you being Libelle that I don't see anything else, I forget that you… well…" She tailored off.

"Still have a penis?" Libelle found herself supplying the end of Ceri's sentence, but with more vehemence than she intended.

"Yeah… sorry." Libelle deflated slightly, Ceri really didn't mean any offense.

"It's okay." She said, "I just wish I could forget that easily," There was a silence as it seemed Ceri didn't know what to say next.

"So where are you meeting her?" Ceri injected a trace of light into her voice as she tried to get away from the previous awkwardness.

"Here." Libelle replied, resuming some sort of normality. "She's going to meet me at the entrance after she finishes her work. It means I might have to hang about for a while after the exam but I can always go to the library, start revising for the real things." Ceri rolled her eyes.

"You really do take this seriously." She laughed, "I can always stay with you afterwards for a bit. Don't worry; I won't gate crash your date or anything." She reassured with a grin.

"It's not a date." Libelle reminded her.

"Not yet anyway." Ceri prompted.

"Shut up." Libelle nudged her, looking bashful.

Surprisingly Libelle managed to focus rather well during her Defence against the Dark Arts mock. She had expected her mind to wander and land on her meeting at the end of the day, but she remained focused. Maybe it was because she was desperate to prove that she could be good at working against the Dark Arts, contrary to her past history with them. She managed to craft out what she felt was well constituted and considered arguments during the written section without even having one moment of panic. If her real written exam went as well as she felt that one had gone, there was no way that she wouldn't get an 'O'. Her practical passed without any disasters, from her at least, there were a few mis-aimed jinxes and forgotten incantations around the rest of the room, but Libelle was having no problem with concentrating on her task to be done. She even surprised herself by managing to cast a successful patronus charm. It had been her aunt Bellatrix who had taught her the theory of that charm, back when Draco was being prepared as an assassin, when occlumency and legilimency were being poured down his throat like the nectar of life. Those lessons were supposed to equip Draco with everything he might need to be able to succeed without betraying them first. Aunt Bellatrix had only been able to explain the theory of the patronus charm – she was not able to cast one herself, she no longer possessed the necessary requirements to do so. Libelle wasn't convinced that Aunt Bellatrix had ever experienced a truly happy moment that wasn't dripping in psychopathy and psychosis. Back then Draco's patronus had materialised in the form of a snake, which had been incredibly unsurprising at the time, but much to Libelle's surprise when her class at MAE came to studying the charm for their NEWTs, the figuration of her patronus had changed. In place of the rather feeble snake that it had been into a rather majestic looking dragonfly… Libelle had had to leave the classroom as the tears overwhelmed her. That made this whole process worth it – all the heartache and everything – when her patronus finally acknowledged who she really was. So when she stepped out of the room at just before ten to four Libelle felt a huge sigh of relief come over her; she had done it, she had gotten through those preliminary exams. Now all she had to do was wait until she got the results back, and then she'd know what to do for the real exams. There was the usual burst of conversation, in which some bemoaned ill desired questions, talked about the next mock that they had, or congratulated people on them finishing their last mock. Libelle had only said a couple of words to Jordan before Ceri had grabbed her hand and was pulling her along.

"Come on," She said, Libelle was resisting from Ceri's pulling.

"Where? What are you doing?" Libelle asked dumbfounded.

"Come on, I'm going to touch your make up before you go to meet with Hermione!" She insisted.

"Okay, alright." Libelle allowed herself to be dragged off towards the girls' toilets.

"So, are you excited?" Ceri asked.

"I'm glad that the exams are over." Libelle replied demurely, she was trying to downplay her excitement. Ceri steered Libelle to the sink and made her lean against one before fishing through her own bag and retrieving her make up bag. She started very delicately to brush blusher across Libelle's cheeks. "I had already put make up on this morning."

"I know, I know – and it looks very nice, but I'm just refreshing it so it's fresh." Ceri told her, holding a pencil to Libelle's eyes while she grinned.

"Thanks Ceri." Libelle said.

"You are _very_ welcome." Ceri answered, grabbing Libelle's shoulders and turning her around to face the mirror. Her silver eyes were brought out by the grey eyeliner that Ceri had applied, the pink rouge across her cheeks and an equally pale pink lip gloss on her lips.

"Oh wow," Libelle breathed putting the tips of her fingers to her face.

"Right, come on, let's go and find a window to sit at until she arrives." Ceri suggested. Libelle knew that this wasn't a date, that this was just the two of them meeting up as friends to go for a few drinks. Her heart was fluttering uncertainly in her chest as she sat, and she was so nervous that she could hardly hear whatever Ceri was talking about.

By half past four Libelle could hardly contain herself, but it was about then that Ceri glanced out of the window and gave a triumphant whoop.

"Hey 'Belle! Isn't that Hermione?" She pointed to a figure standing just outside the entrance to the MAE foyer; the figure was close enough to just be distinguishable as a girl with long brown hair.

"What?! It looks like her…" Libelle stood up to look out of the window. "She's not meant to be out of her work until five!"

"Maybe she got out early because she was too excited to wait longer" Ceri nudged Libelle suggestively.

"I – I…" Libelle stammered uncertainly.

"On you go then!" Ceri chivvied Libelle away from the window towards the steps that would lead down to the foyer. "I'll watch you from here, and remember – I want to…"

"Know all the details." Libelle finished her sentence for her. "I know, I'll let you know."

It was Hermione, Libelle could see that before she was out of the foyer; she took a deep breath, willing her legs not to turn to jelly. She needed to calm down and stop being so serious – this was not a date, just a meeting up as friends. Yet she still felt stupidly embarrassed and nervous.

"Hermione?" Libelle asked, her voice cracking slightly as she approached her.

"Libelle!" Hermione's face broke out into a grin as she saw Libelle standing there. Quite unexpectedly Hermione reached out and gave Libelle a quick hug; despite the height difference between them she did a pretty good job. "Is that you finished?" Libelle nodded, still not quite sure what to say next but she knew she needed to find her voice quickly. "Congratulations! That'll be a weight off your mind for a little while."

"Yeah," Libelle agreed. "Now it'll be the real ones that I have to worry about once I've got the results back from these ones." Libelle felt like she could feel Ceri's eyes boring into her from the window they had been sat at in the building. "Shall we go?" She suggested, eager to get away from that omnipresent feeling.

"I'll let you lead the way." Hermione said, "I'm not entirely sure where we're going." The two of them began to walk away from the college, Libelle leading the way. "Will you have to wait long for the results of those exams?" Hermione asked, Libelle was beginning to feel her nerves creeping up on her again as she walked alongside the petite figure of Hermione.

"I hope not," She told Hermione. "They're all being marked within the college, so hopefully it won't take them too long. It's not like the little pub that she was intending to be their destination. "It's in here." She indicated to the door, suddenly aware of how grotty the place must look. "It's worth it. I promise." She pulled open the door and held it open for Hermione to enter. "There's some nice tables over at the back." Libelle advised, she was beginning to wonder if this pub had been such a good idea. It was very quiet, with only two other people visible, but that made Libelle feel like they were the centre of attention, and that made her feel very uncomfortable.

"This is beautiful!" Hermione exclaimed as they sat at one of the tables next to the window, overlooking the garden with violets and lavender in it. "How did you find out about this place? I mean, it doesn't look that inviting from the outside."

"Yeah, that's what I thought too." Libelle laughed. "It was a friend of mine who insisted we come in here, she told me they do really nice cocktails and then kinda frogmarched me inside."

"I can't imagine you being frogmarched anywhere." Hermione responded disbelievingly.

"Oh believe me, it's probably much easier than you would imagine." Libelle told her as she picked up one of the menus from the table, "Come on, let's have a drink." Hermione picked up the other menu and perused it, Libelle was trying to act as though she didn't notice that Hermione's eyes were flickering up to look at her from over the menu every few seconds.

"What are you fancying?" Hermione asked after a few moment, Libelle felt her heart stutter in her chest as she suppressed the instinctual reaction to that question. "I'll get the first drinks." Hermione said, laying down her menu and picking up her bag; Libelle began to protest this, but Hermione shook her head. "Nope, this is a celebration of you finishing your mocks, so I'm buying you your first drink, alright?" Hermione announced this so firmly that Libelle knew that there was no point in trying to argue and she nodded submissively. "Good, now what would you like?"

"I'll have whatever, I like pretty much everything." Libelle replied, and then almost instantly regretted it – she had only tried one cocktail from here and she had no idea if she would like any of the rest. She wished her heart rate would calm down a little bit now they were here, otherwise she was going to be thoroughly exhausted in about ten minutes. When Hermione returned she was carrying two long thin glasses of a bright pink liquid and wearing a big smile across her face.

"It's a strawberry daiquiri." Hermione explained, placing the glass down in front of Libelle. "I think it looked intricate enough for a toast." She sat down and raised the glass towards Libelle. "To your exams being over – the first lot anyway, and to never giving up your dreams." Libelle's glass clinked against Hermione's before she took a drink; it was much sweeter than she had anticipated.

"Now all I've got to worry about is the real exams." Libelle muttered, trying to grab onto a topic that they could discuss rather than sitting in a rather awkward silence.

"I doubt you _actually_ need to worry about them though." She was sounding uncannily like Ceri often did. "If I recall correctly when we were at Hogwarts you were nipping up my heels in nearly every subject!"

"I think you must be recalling that wrong." Libelle conceded. "Maybe one class – potions, but that was because I had help from Snape… But all the rest you were leaps and bounds ahead of all of us, you were probably ahead of most of the folk in the year above us."

"You're exaggerating there." Hermione answered, but Libelle noticed that her cheeks had gone very pink. "You shouldn't put yourself down so much, I know how good you were at school – you could have given me a run for my money with your eyes shut."

"I maybe had a bit of a head start, but you didn't take long to catch me up!" Libelle laughed, "I had to work at it, you know? I didn't just breeze through everything without putting in any effort, I used to really study – just not in the public eye… I had the added disadvantage of Crabbe and Goyle as well. I'm pretty sure they could have made a genius look thick if they were saddled with them as sidekicks." Hermione smiled sympathetically. "No I mean it, the two galumphing gargoyles could barely read until they were in second year, it's incredibly difficult to have any kind of intelligent conversation with someone who's got the mental age of a nine year old."

"And I thought Ron and Harry were bad…" Hermione chuckled loudly.

"Believe me, Ron and Harry could have done _anything_ and they still wouldn't have matched up to Crabbe and Goyle…" Libelle assured, "I would have done pretty much anything to get in with a bunch of half decent people rather than been lumbered with people who were just children of my dad's friends."

"I guess it must be more difficult if you already knew people, I didn't know anyone when I arrived, and it took me a while before I managed to fit in." Hermione had been so desperately excited to go to Hogwarts that she hadn't blended in instantly. Her first few months had been quite lonely as she tried to fit in with her classmates and tried to absorb as much information about this new world she was inhabiting, it hadn't been until the incident with the troll that Hermione had fallen in with Ron and Harry.

"I wish I hadn't known anyone." Libelle repeated, "But unfortunately I did, and I got stuck with them. I did try, really early on, to break out of that group, but I can't claim that I was a very nice person – or that I was any good at relating to other people, so most of the time I just ended up insulting people. I think both Crabbe and Goyle's fathers had told them to stick with me, and that's exactly what they did - like limpets." There was a frown on Libelle's face as she said this and Hermione remembered, with a jolt, that Crabbe had died during the Battle of Hogwarts.

"Do you miss him – Crabbe?" Hermione asked quietly.

"I do, but it's not an overwhelming sense of loss. It's crap what happened, but he brought it upon himself, believe me I've done a lot of thinking about it." Libelle assured Hermione.

"Did they know?" Hermione asked, then suddenly her face blanched white and she looked very embarrassed. "Sorry." She mumbled, placing her drink onto the table in between them.

"About me, do you mean?" Libelle questioned, normally when her mother or Ceri, or anyone else who knew the truth mentioned it, she would experience a pang of anxiety followed by a desire to change the subject immediately. But when it was Hermione asking, that panic and discomfort didn't flood Libelle as was usual. "I don't think either of those two would have understood what the word gay meant, let alone transgender. Hell – I didn't know what transgender meant until about a year and a half ago!" Libelle laughed very sharply. "Even if I had known while I was at school, that there was a name for how I was feeling and that other people felt like that too, I don't think I would have told them anyway. They were still living in the dark ages."

"That must have been quite lonely though, not being able to talk to anyone about it." Hermione commented.

"I remembered one time in fourth year Snape tried to talk to me about it." Libelle recalled, a grin spreading across her face.

"Snape?!" Hermione spluttered, almost choking on her drink. "That must have been awkward…"

"It was around the time of the Yule Ball and, although I wasn't aware of it, my father had matched me with a suitor, that was his Christmas present to me – to find me a wife." Libelle explained, "Snape had been on my case for weeks to ask someone to the Ball. I could see afterwards that he had been trying to get me to pre-empt my parents and show them I could make a respectable choice of a pureblood to court."

"Didn't you go to the Yule Ball with…"

"Pansy Parkinson, yes." Libelle cut over Hermione. "Who actually did fit into the 'respectable pureblood family' requirement, but by then it was too late."

"I can't imagine being fourteen and being told that someone's found a wife for you." Hermione shook her head. "I can't imagine _ever_ being told that my parents had picked a suitor for me, that just seems so… so…"

"Medieval?" Libelle provided.

"Yes!" Hermione exclaimed, putting her nearly finished glass down onto the table with some force. Libelle could feel her cheeks echoing the colour of the strawberry daiquiri she was drinking, there was something scarily exciting about Hermione when she was angry or passionate. This was easier than she thought, even with her heart still going quicker than usual, she didn't know why she had been so nervous and worried. But it already felt like Hermione was someone she had known for years – well, someone she had known intimately for years. She was at ease when she was talking to Hermione, like she could talk about anything at all.

"That's what being a Malfoy is all about." Libelle told Hermione. "But yes, it is very medieval."

"So what did you do? I can't see either you or your father giving up on the issue lightly." Hermione asked.

"No he didn't want to. I tried to tell him I wasn't ready for marriage or anything, like I was too young, but he would always disregard that because my mother and him got married when they were very young – like seventeen and eighteen." Libelle told her, it was weird to think of the time before. When Draco was doing anything and everything he could to find a way out of this arrangement without admitting that he didn't want it because he didn't like girls – and trying to skirt and repress the inner conflict that was unravelling in him. Before he had to step up and make decisions that he didn't want to because he needed to honour the family name because he had already besmirched it enough simply by being. "When that excuse didn't work I tried to simply refuse, saying that I wouldn't do it – I would rather leave home and never come back, that if they forced me I would ignore my new wife and never touch her so they wouldn't get the grandchildren they wanted. I threatened to tell the Ministry about all of father's artefacts, I tried anything."

"And they still wouldn't listen?" Hermione said.

"I had caught my mother's attention by that point, I think at the beginning she thought I was just reacting like that because of the shock, but then the longer it carried on she must have realised how serious I really was about not wanting it. She convinced my father that I was clearly not ready and that they should postpone it until I was ready to act like a grown up – she made it sound like she was telling me off, but she was actually trying to protect me."

"That's still pretty steep stuff to have been dealing with, especially with Voldemort getting powerful at the same time." Hermione said, her eyes wide, Libelle shrugged.

"It just kind of happened; there was nothing that I could do to change that." She said, "I can't even remember exactly when it was but during that summer just after the Dark Lord came back, my father brought up the whole marriage betrothal thing again and I screamed at him that I was gay and didn't want to get married." Hermione gasped audibly, she was leaning forwards in her seat now, visibly hanging on to every word that Libelle was saying, this was quite a nice phenomenon for Libelle, people actually being interested in her because they cared. "He never actually said anything _against_ me being gay, not to my face anyway… he just kind of dropped the marriage thing, but I always felt like he was disappointed, like I wasn't living up to the expectation he had of me… And you know what happened next with the Dark Lord and the Death Eaters and everything, and I tried to prove to my father that I could still be what he wanted."

At this point they were interrupted by the barman who had come over to clear their empty glasses away.

"Do you ladies want another drink?" He asked while picking up the empty glasses, Hermione and Libelle looked at each other momentarily then nodded.

"Yeah, why not." Libelle agreed and the barman went away, Hermione's grin faded until her face looked rather impassive as she stared at the barman who was making their drinks. "What?"

"It's strange, isn't it?" She muttered, she was gazing dreamily ahead of her, with her eyes glazed over.

"What is?" Libelle couldn't conceal the hint of worry from creeping into her voice.

"If someone had told me a year ago that I'd be sitting having drinks with you just now I think I would have laughed in their face." Hermione replied. "But here we are."

"I know," Libelle answered, feeling the tense knot that had wound up inside her so suddenly begin to loosen. "After last May I hadn't wanted to see anyone from my time at Hogwarts ever again – but here I am, and this is more than just pleasant."

"The universe is strange that way." Hermione smiled, she had leant forwards in her chair again and Libelle could almost physically feel the intensity of her gaze.

"Here we go ladies," The barman had returned with their glasses, placing them on the table in front of them with a flourish.

"Thank you very much." Libelle said to him, he bowed his head slightly then returned to the bar. Libelle could tell that Hermione was still gazing at her and she couldn't quite tell whether that made her feel uncomfortable or just slightly embarrassed, her cheeks were beginning to go pink – but perhaps that could be the effects of the alcohol.

"Why did you choose Libelle?" Hermione asked quickly after taking a long sip from her daiquiri. "Just tell me to shut up if I'm being too nosy… It's an interesting name, I don't think I've ever heard it before." Libelle grinned, she had spent quite a while pondering her name – she knew that if she was changing it entirely, as opposed to simply using the feminine form of Draco, then she had to find a name that suited her. "It's not a star, is it?" Libelle blinked.

"How do you know about that?" Libelle asked rather surprised, Hermione let out a short burst of laughter.

"Your mother was a Black, wasn't she? Sirius told us once that the Blacks were named after the lights in the heavens to detract from the darkness of their natures." Hermione explained.

"For that I would agree with him." Libelle nodded.

"Even if he hadn't told us, it's kind of obvious to spot the pattern." Hermione pointed out. "I mean: Sirius, Regulus, Orion, Arcturus, Bellatrix, Andromeda… Although come to think of it I don't know of a constellation called Naricssa…"

"There isn't one." Libelle told her. "Although by the sounds of it, you know more about my family tree than I do!"

"There was a big old tapestry in Grimmauld Place with the Black family tree on it." Hermione justified, suddenly realising that she had sounded just a little bit obsessed. "It had you on it, and the rest of your mother's side."

"I'm sure I've heard about that before, probably from Bellatrix, she was always fuming on about something." Libelle muttered. "I think my mother was the first for a long time to not be named after a star. A 'Narcissa' is a kind of flower, although I think if you buy it as a bulb it's called a Narcissa star. I don't know whether that actually had any bearing on my grandmother, I simply think she just didn't want three girls named after stars, so she chose something different."

"Good on her." Hermione nodded.

"Yeah…" Libelle agreed, "I considered a flower name, I considered a star name as well, but I couldn't find one that fit, or that didn't sound like I was copying someone else."

"What names did you consider?"

"Well I liked the names Aster and Calla." Libelle began, "But no matter how many times I said them either looking at myself or not, it just never seemed to suit me. And I liked the name Lily, but that was always going to be a no go."

"Why?"

"I didn't want to be seen to be copying Lily Potter, with my history that would have been a very big mistake." Libelle pointed this out as though it should have been obvious.

"I don't think people would have put two and two together really." Hermione said calmly.

"The average person might not, but I'm pretty sure that the _Daily Prophet_ would put it together in a flash and it would be me made to look like the weird, bad one." Libelle justified. "I'm hoping that no one will find out, but if they do then I want to minimise the damage."

"That's fair enough." Hermione shrugged her shoulders passively. "So Libelle's not a star, or a flower, so what is it?"

"It's actually not really a name at all…" Libelle admitted, running her finger around the rim of the glass. "I wanted to pick something that would have some kind of meaning to me, to the new me." Hermione waited patiently, she didn't want to push Libelle any more than she already had. "It means dragonfly in Dutch."

"Dragonfly?" Hermione repeated, unfortunately the language she had learnt during her primary muggle education had been French, so Dutch and its derivatives were definitely foreign to her.

"Do you know what the life cycle of a dragon fly is?" Libelle asked curiously.

"Not really." Hermione answered, shaking her head again.

"They begin their lives as sort of nymph things, the eggs are lain in water so when they hatch they look like these hideously alien creatures." Libelle told Hermione. "And they stay under water until they've nearly reached adulthood, and it can take a long time for that to happen. When they're ready to crawl out of the water and shed their nymph skin and emerge as a fully fledged dragonfly. It's only at adulthood, after a long time getting ready, that we recognise them for what they really are. I wanted to have that kind of transformative moment, where I could leave my old self behind – the bit that isn't really me – and emerge as the real me."

"That's… That's really sweet!" Hermione exclaimed and Libelle could feel herself beaming that she had managed to explain that so eloquently.

"Thanks," She nodded. "It's a bit strange that since I've changed my name to Libelle my patronus had changed, it used to be a snake and now it's a dragonfly."

"That just proves that it's meant to be!" Hermione reiterated.

"I think you're right about that, and it's meant that I'm totally right about being Libelle." She agreed, "It's easier to be a nice person when I don't feel like some kind of freak."

"You're definitely not some kind of freak!" Hermione protested, reacting out her hand and placing it on top of Libelle's hand, which was laying on the table top. Something electric pulsed through Libelle as the warmth of Hermione's hand touched the coolness of her own, Libelle hoped Hermione hadn't felt the physical jolt that had coursed through her. "I think you've been incredibly courageous and that you should be proud of where you've come from. I know you've got a long heritage in Slytherin, but if you had the sorting hat right now I'm pretty sure it'd put you in Gryffindor…"

"Perhaps." Libelle muttered, Hermione's hand was still resting on top of her own, causing some sort of peculiar warm ripple through her hand and up her arm. She didn't want Hermione to take her hand away, not now a pleasant tingling sensation that was replacing the warmth on the back of her hand, or the peculiar sensation was replacing the warmth on the back of her hand, or the peculiar sensation that was rising into her chest and making her feel breathless and giddy. Hermione smiled at Libelle, then seemingly noticed that her hand was still on top of Libelle's she withdrew it, her cheeks turning red.

"I listened to your advice." She said quietly, looking down at her hands.

"What advice?" Libelle asked bemused, she couldn't help the nervous rasp in her voice as she tried to control the pounding of her heart and the tightening of her chest.

"To follow what I really want to do with my life rather than settle for what I'm doing just now." Hermione replied, oddly Libelle couldn't quite recall saying that, but she must have done if Hermione was accrediting it to her. "I've… uh…" She took a drink from her cocktail. "I've applied to study magical law."

"You have?" Libelle exclaimed in surprise. "Oh that's fantastic Hermione, you're _bound_ to get in! Where abouts have you applied to?"

"Just to the Ministry scheme, I've had to get Professor McGonagall to write a letter for me to explain why I don't have my NEWTs, hopefully that'll be enough, if it's not then I'll maybe do what you've done – a year at college and do my NEWTs."

"I'm applying to the Ministry training scheme too! For healing of course, but that's really cool!" Libelle wriggled in her seat, what if the two of them ended up in the training scheme at the same time?

"Really?" Hermione paused; there were a few more people who had entered the pub, perhaps after finishing work, and the noise level had increased as a result. Hermione shifted her chair around the circular table until she was sitting right next to Libelle, to avoid having to shout to be heard and strain to hear. "I didn't think you would pick the Ministry one in case there were people on it that you knew."

"I thought about it for a little while, cause I wasn't convinced; but then I realised that hopefully come the start of the course I'll have been on the hormone therapy for quite a while, I might have even had the surgery that I want – so I should be beginning to look more how I feel." Libelle said, she was watching Hermione's profile as she was sat alongside her. "And if that's the case then I'll be better able to deny any accusations or questions that come my way." Libelle stated this matter of factly, like she had already spent a long time considering it.

"That's great!" Hermione acknowledged. "So we're both aiming for the Ministry training scheme, well good luck to us!"

"I think this calls for a toast, don't you?" Libelle said, raising her cocktail glass into the air, Hermione followed suit. "To the future."

"The future." Hermione repeated, Libelle had had to consciously think so she hadn't said 'our future', that would have been a slip of the tongue which would have given the game away. Hermione took a quick drink, then set her glass down before reaching her arm out to hug Libelle. "Thank you." Hermione whispered, her arm draped around Libelle's shoulders. Although taken by surprise, Libelle didn't recoil, she felt the softness of Hermione's cheek as it pressed against her own, and she felt her own heart rate increase. She closed her eyes momentarily; this might be the closest she ever got to Hermione. Hermione began to draw back and Libelle's eyes snapped open quickly, but Hermione didn't move her hand from Libelle's shoulder – and if a physical charge could have been measured from the brush of skin that was their cheeks, Libelle was sure her hair would have gone static. Hermione's face was less than a foot away from Libelle's – the pinkness of her lips obvious and the freckles on her nose almost countable; there was a fierce look in her eyes, a hardness that came from determination. Very suddenly Hermione leant forwards and kissed Libelle. It only lasted for a second, but in that second Libelle thought her heart might be about to leap out of her chest. Hermione's lips were soft against Libelle's, and the hand Hermione had placed on Libelle's shoulder gripped tightly. Then it was over, their lips had broken apart and Hermione had, drawn back, her grip on Libelle's shoulders relinquishing.

The next few seconds seemed to stretch on for an eternity, with Hermione looking sheepish – maybe even a little scared – and Libelle floundering, not knowing what to do or say next. Everything around them had slowed down and faded, the noise that the rest of the people in the pub had been making was now non-existent to the two of them. When Libelle abandoned the shock of what had just happened by putting her hands on Hermione's cheeks – her large hands could've entirely covered Hermione's face – but she cupped them tenderly and pulled Hermione towards her. Hermione's lips were warm as they kissed for a second time; Hermione's hand snaked over Libelle's shoulder and round behind her neck. Libelle shuddered as Hermione's tongue brushed across her lips, could she really not be dreaming? Was it possible that this was all a concoction of her mind? Maybe the day hadn't even begun yet – how else would she have come up with such a perfect day: her exam going well, Hermione arriving early, and now Hermione kissing her. It _felt_ real enough – everything about Hermione felt real, the warmth of her skin, the slightly musky scent of her, the tenderness of her touch as her hand stroked the back of Libelle's neck, and the intensity of her mouth, her lips and tongue. That was real, it was _so_ real.

When Libelle pulled back she was breathless, both from the shock of the situation and from the length of time that they had been kissing. Hermione's cheeks were bright pink now and her hair a little ruffled from where Libelle's hand had ended up resting. From across the other side of the pub someone wolf whistled and Libelle could feel her own cheeks burning.

"Well…" Libelle began, her voice cracking slightly. "That was unexpected." She felt as though she was sitting in a very bright spotlight and everyone in the pub was staring at them. Even though this wasn't the case she still shifted in her chair, turning to face Hermione more.

"I'm sorry," Hermione burbled, she seemed a little more agitated now. "I didn't want to make you feel uncomfortable or anything."

"I said it was unexpected, not unpleasant." Libelle responded calmly. "In fact, it was very pleasant." Hermione went scarlet at this comment, and Libelle felt a flutter inside her chest at this reaction. The two of them looked at each other for a few moments, each one waiting for the other to do something, eventually Hermione broke the silence:

"I don't know what to do now.:" She admitted quietly.

"Neither do I really." Libelle lied, although her mind was reeling – all the confusion that she had been feeling about her sexuality was still present, but somehow it felt like it was no longer relevant. What was relevant was that she had just kissed Hermione, and she really liked her. "I didn't realise that… that you liked girls." Libelle muttered lowly.

"Things change over the course of your life. I think I need to open my eyes and accept that." Hermione said shrugging. "I knot you don't, well – don't like girls."

"Didn't." Libelle corrected.

"What?"

"I didn't like girls, or really have any interest in them apart from wanting to be one." Libelle stated, "And I was so repressed, just all of me – my gender, my sexuality, my personality – and so bothered about what my father would think, about our family reputation… I can't be bothered with it anymore, it's not like our family name can really be any more disgraced than it is right now, and I'm not going to make my father love me any more by trying to fit into one of the boxes he wants me to. I just want to go with what is right by me, and right now? I really like you." If it was at all possible for Hermione to go any redder than she already was, it happened, as though compelled by what Libelle had just said Hermione leant in to kiss her again. It was like the application of an anaesthetic to a pain that had been borne for so long; their lips fit perfectly together and in that moment neither of them could have cared if the entire pub was watching.

"So what happens now?" Hermione asked once they had broken apart. "I didn't really expect this, I don't know what you want to do, but I really like you too." Libelle's heart did a peculiar flipping sensation in her chest as Hermione said this.

"You have to know," Libelle began sounding rather somberly. "That I'm not… I've still…" She struggled to find the words, but Hermione waited patiently. "I'm on the journey to being right, mentally and physically – if you know what I mean… but I'm not entirely there yet, if you get what I'm trying to say…" Almost involuntarily Libelle had glanced down when she said this, and Hermione had understood with a flash what she was referring to.

"Let's take our time in getting to know each other, this is a new thing for both of us!" Hermione said, putting her hand on Libelle's knee for reassurance. "I don't and won't ever make you do anything that you are uncomfortable with, I want you to be happy – and expect the same from you. If that means that I back off right now until you feel comfortable then I will."

"I definitely don't want you to back off!" Libelle exclaimed, "I just want to be upfront so you know that I'm not offering sex or anything like that."

"I understand that Libelle," Hermione responded, for a moment it looked like Libelle was about to cry with relief. "Let's just get to know each other properly – it's not like we were best friends before, I think that would be the best idea for both of us."

"Yeah, that sounds really good." Libelle said, "Thank you for understanding."

"You don't need to thank me, let's just not rush and waste this." Hermione grinned, this was the most alive that she had felt in a long time. Libelle's silver eyes were swimming with excitement, it seemed that what Ceri had predicted was true.

"I want to know everything about you – I want to correct all my former misconceptions." Libelle said greedily. "I need to do that, to prove myself wrong." It was like something within Libelle had opened up, a desire that she could no longer hide inside herself and didn't want to; and Hermione could see that – and wanted that to continue. She wanted this to be the start of something good, something to bring a new start for them both after the difficult times of the past few years.

"We've got time." Hermione answered calmly. "Plenty of time." Libelle nodded, smiling. "Let's start with a fresh drink." She attracted the attention of the barman, signalling for him to bring them drinks; then turned her attention back to Libelle and clasped her hand around Libelle's, ready for the start of this new relationship and journey.

* * *

 **A/N: So this is the last chapter and the end of this story (for the time being). If you've read it, I thank you - and I'd love to know what you think/whether you would be interested in reading more.**


End file.
